Big Ten Opening Round (and others): Picks, How to Watch, & Open Thread

The Big Ten Tournament kicks off today alongside other upper echelon conferences. The Big East, Big XII, Pac-12, and SEC all have their first sets of games going while the ACC started yesterday.

We’ve also got games in the hopper with no fans in the seats due to COVID-19, though the neutral site games between in the MAC & Big West tournaments don’t begin until tomorrow.

All lines courtesy of William Hill

As for the Big Ten, the Minnesota Golden Gophers and Northwestern Wildcats kick things off at 5:00p this evening in Indianapolis. With just Northwestern coming off a win against PSU (and giving Iowa a path to the 5 seed) while Daniel Oturu and company blew the brakes off of Nebraska. Minnesota’s beaten NW twice before by a combined 35 points. While +300 is always a tasty underdog bet, there’s a reason Minny beat them twice: they’re better. Minnesota -8

While we’re at it, let’s go ahead and take over 136. In the prior two games, they’ve combined for 145 and 140 points.

The Nebraska Cornhuskers are so depleted, they’re bringing football players on their trip to Indianapolis. The jokes write themselves at this point so I’m not even going to try. They’ll take on the Indiana Hoosiers at approximately 7:30p, depending on how many reviews and free throws are taken in the last couple minutes of the NW/Minnesota game. But Indiana laying 14 is a huge number for a team who’s won exactly 0 conference by that margin or more. Hold your nose and take Nebraska +14.

For the broader Big Ten, Michigan is the tastiest line at 10/1. In a vacuum. They’re 2-0 against Rutgers this season but scored 69 and 60 points in each of their wins. If we’re feeling crazy, a desperate Purdue squad at 28/1 but have to go through up to 3 top 10-ish KenPom teams in OSU (8), MSU (7), and Maryland (11).

Defense (#1 in conference) and 3-point shooting (#3) is the name of the game in Indy, which is why MSU is prohibitive favorites at +200. Wisconsin (+600) is the only team in the top 5 of both, with the #5 conference defense and #2 3-point shooting. But my betting morality keeps me from laying a penny on either of these two teams so let’s lean into the #9 (Michigan) & #10 (Purdue) seeds in the conference for combined 19/1 odds.

As for the rest of the games (and tournaments) today, my favorite bets are:

• Utah +130 (over Oregon State)
• Washington +200 (over Arizona)
• Oklahoma State -6.5 (over Iowa State)
• UNC 25/1 to win the ACC tournament
• Rhode Island +850 to win the Atlantic 10 tournament
• Butler +600 to win the Big East tournament

Stay safe out there.

The numbers alongside each team is their KenPom ranking. Games in bold are being played at the home team’s home arena. I’m like 90% sure I allocated ESPN+ games appropriately.