It was certainly a week of substantial results yet again. Iowa was finally toppled — twice — two games went to at least one overtime and the top dozen teams of the conference appear to be situating themselves as NCAA Tournament teams at minimum.

But it’s February now, we are officially a month out from everything to play for. Maybe it’s time to really check in and see where these teams stand for the Big Dance.

Last Hoopla: The UCLA Death Star

As of Feb. 3, this “top dozen” I mentioned above remains the consistently projected 12 Big Ten teams into the field. ESPN’s latest Bracketology has each of these teams solidly in the field, with one team — Oregon — listed among the Last Four Byes, but none listed in the First Four.

These 12 teams have stayed pretty consistent all season, but each are also fighting for something a little bit different.

UCLA may be the only one from the bunch truly fighting for a No. 1 seed, and as of right now, it feels extremely likely the Bruins will get it. They had an actual fight of a game for the first time in weeks against Illinois (which I will discuss when talking about the Illini), then trounced the Hawkeyes at home to make up for it. The Michigan matchups loom, but even a split there would likely keep them well on the 1-seed line.

Speaking of Michigan! The Wolverines are the lone 2-seed from the Big Ten in ESPN’s latest projection, riding high off a huge overtime win against the in-state Spartans this week. If Michigan takes down UCLA, there could be a push to the top four that isn’t out of the question. For now, though, the Wolverines instead feel very safe as a Top 16 team, but maybe not likely to move up.

On that overtime win, though: Mila Holloway. What a game from the sophomore guard — 26 points, six rebounds and five assists on 11-of-16 shooting in 38 minutes before fouling out. She was massive in that second half of regulation for the Wolverines.

It’s been a difficult week for Iowa, not only for the two defeats out west, but also because the Hawkeyes found out they would be without veteran sharpshooter Taylor McCabe the rest of the season for a torn ACL.

This Iowa roster is deep enough to recover from that, but it really struggled to contain either USC or UCLA, allowing more than 80 points for the second and third times this season (UConn being the other). The Hawkeyes’ lone matchup this week is a huge home game against Minnesota. Right now, ESPN has them as a 3-seed, but a loss there could put Iowa right on the line for opening round home games.

The previously mentioned Michigan State is also listed as a 3-seed, which would be significant progress for this program in the Robyn Fralick era. The Spartans have two extremely reasonable defeats and then That Wisconsin Loss, but also have a big Ole Miss non-conference win and a big home game against Maryland coming this week. This roster has the scoring power and ability to disrupt to give anyone a challenge, and they feel in strong position to stay in this tier.

Ohio State is the third Big Ten team ESPN has placed on the 3-seed line. The Buckeyes are 20-3 without a bad loss, just beat a solid Nebraska team by 19 and are about to head out west for some crucial games against Washington and Oregon. Wins over there would solidify Ohio State, in my mind, as a team worthy of being in this spot. For now, I continue to be impressed with this Buckeyes roster — Chance Gray especially has stood out to me as of late along with Jaloni Cambridge.

These five Big Ten teams above are the only ones currently projected to host the first two rounds in the latest ESPN bracket. Maryland fell down to the 5-seed line from its latest struggles, dropping four straight and 5 of its last 6 games. The injuries have taken their toll, as has a particularly rough part of the schedule, but the Terps also still hold a solid 17-6 record and have everything to play for at this point in the year.

It must be remembered that two of these defeats in the losing streak came in overtime, so it’s not like Maryland is completely falling apart. There’s big tests coming this week against Michigan State and Nebraska that could help steer the ship in the right direction.

…And what if I say that I think Illinois should be in this section? The Illini also have just six defeats and have beaten the aforementioned Terps already this season. The schedule plays out very nicely for them to end the season on a strong run, especially if upcoming games against Oregon and USC go well.

It doesn’t look like much to merely bring UCLA within two scores in the second half a few times, but that is more than quite a lot of the Bruins’ recent foes can say. Following that with a road win against a very solid Washington group proved to me that this young Illini team has quite a bit of fight in it, which I think could lead to a second half surge.

Cearah Parchment has been on a tear lately, scoring 23+ points in three straight contests. She’s also averaging 9.3 RPG, shooting 60.9% from the field and is 8 of 14 (57.1%) from deep in those contests. This team plays well above its years of experience, avoiding turnovers at an elite rate while being the nation’s top free-throw shooting team (82.3%).

Currently listed as a 7-seed on ESPN, I think that’s going to keep rising. Watch out for Illinois down the stretch.

That 7-seed line is also a hotbed for Big Ten teams, apparently. Illinois is one of three teams currently sat there. The team the Illini just beat, Washington, also has a very high ceiling, but has been even more topsy turvy and hard to read on the whole.

Wins against Michigan and Maryland fly off the page. Then there’s that loss to Purdue, and the latest home defeat to Illinois. This team, led largely by the immense efforts of Sayvia Sellers, still can give teams plenty of fits, but I’m waiting for the spark to really ignite with them still.

Nebraska is the other 7-seed, and unlike the Huskies, I do think the Cornhuskers have performed to what they are capable of in a lot of ways. Not having Natalie Potts for this whole season stings, but this team can still shoot the lights out with its mass array of weapons, led at the point by Britt Prince.

I won’t go long on Minnesota again, but cmon, rank these Gophers AP. They did what I thought they would and beat Penn State and Purdue with ease this past week. They’re now 16-6 and remain ninth in Bart Torvik, and yet Minnesota is just an 8-seed in the ESPN bracket.

Do I think Minnesota could sneak into Top 16 conversations? A win at Iowa this week could get me to say yes. For now, I think the Gophers are very comfortably in the field and could get themselves a great seed spot if they finish strong.

I teetered back and forth on if I should have USC listed in the section above. This week certainly went a long way in getting the Trojans closer to feeling safe at the very least.

A 12-point win over Iowa for the Hawkeyes’ first conference loss of the season, followed by a thumping of Rutgers is just about as good as USC could have hoped for this week. Kara Dunn and Jazzy Davidson have been a terrific 1-2 punch lately, and the defense is always going to give them a safe floor to potentially make some real noise.

The reason I think USC isn’t all the way safe: A 13-9 record is what it is. Almost none of those nine defeats are even “bad” ones, but there are nine of them, and that means there is less margin for error down the stretch. It’s mostly a light schedule before the UCLA rematch, so pile up wins now and avoid feeling nervous in a few weeks.

Oregon is in the Last Four Byes section, so they appear to be the shakiest of these 12 teams at the current moment. The 17-7 record now includes two big road wins: At USC and at Maryland, and again, two of the Ducks’ defeats are not just via OT, but via double OT. They also have A Wisconsin Loss to reckon with, but I still don’t buy that Oregon is in all that much danger going forward.

Further proof of this is the NET rankings. I’ll use these more as we get closer to the end stretch, but the Ducks aren’t even 12th among Big Ten teams there. Oregon is 22nd overall and ninth among Big Ten teams, ahead of Nebraska (24th), Washington (30th) and Illinois (33rd), the last of which is a team I vouched to keep an eye out for as a Top-4 seed threat.

The thing with Oregon’s back-end of the schedule: It’s a ton of winnable, but not easy win games. Illinois, Ohio State, Washington, Nebraska, Indiana, Purdue, Washington is a stretch that doesn’t hold much comfort or an outrageous abundance of concern. Oregon needs to at least finish with three wins here to avoid inching closer to that bubble.

So those are the 12 Big Ten teams that will very likely be in the NCAA Tournament. Are there any other contenders?

In all likelihood, I don’t think so.

Indiana performs the best in the metrics, ranking 55th in Torvik and 58th in the NET. The Hoosiers also just made a statement against Northwestern, going up by 30 in the first quarter on their way to Big Ten win No. 1. Maybe that ignites a late run, but it should at least get Indiana into the Big Ten Tournament which was a concern for some time.

Wisconsin has been mentioned a few times above for disrupting order, but do the Badgers have a fighting chance at getting into the field? Their three Quad 1 wins completely stand out next to their peers, but unfortunately those peers are nowhere near the bubble as Wisconsin ranks 80th in the NET.

With home games in 3 of the next 4, if the Badgers pull a few more upsets heading into the California road trip, you can’t count them entirely out. But maybe they’ll just beat UCLA at this point too, who knows!

(TTQ: Torvik Thrill Quotient)

Oh, it is a week of games, friends.

Photo Credit: Illinois Women’s Basketball (@IlliniWBB), Twitter

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