Well just like that, the Big Ten season is over. What a week of games it was, with electric finishes all the way through Saturday, and then a championship game was also played on Sunday.

UCLA won some hard-fought matchups against Washington and Ohio State that, while ending in relatively convincing wins, did take the Bruins digging deep and fending off some strong efforts. The Huskies held UCLA to six first quarter points, and the Buckeyes simply would not allow the Bruins to pull away as they so often do. Still, both ended with double-digit victories for the undefeated regular season champs.

Then, the championship game. Iowa scored 45 points, and UCLA scored 51 more points than that. It was not close, it was never close, and Cori Close and co. took home their second straight tournament title.

We didn’t necessarily learn anything new about UCLA, but it confirmed what seemed clear already: These Bruins are absolutely nasty. They are so, so, so well-rounded of a group with excellent shooting, passing, defending, rebounding and just about anything you can want. Lauren Betts — Big Ten Player of the Year — finished the title game with 10 points. She was outscored by five of her teammates in a complete demolition of a Top 10 team in the country.

Congrats to UCLA, and I am so excited to see what this group does in the NCAA Tournament. I think the Bruins deserve that No. 1 overall seed, not that it matters all that much. UConn is the defending champ, and the Huskies are undefeated. They blow out almost everyone. If the committee keeps them at 1, I don’t think it’s a travesty, I just think the Bruins earned the leap to 1 with this level of dominance in this difficult of a conference.

Last Hoopla: Big Ten Tournament Predictions

UCLA won, and UCLA won massively. But what about the rest of the tournament? Well I went 11-3 on my picks, a record I am absolutely taking to the bank. But looking at the results, let’s work in reverse.

Yes, the Hawkeyes got completely embarrassed in the championship. No, I don’t think that should hold all that much weight in the conversation with this team.

How Iowa got to that point is much more important to me. The Hawkeyes took down an Illinois team that made a strong run through the first two days, then demolished Michigan for the second time in as many weeks. The latter game was not a blowout the entire time — Michigan even led entering the fourth — but Iowa completely shut the door on the Wolverines and dominated that final quarter to end with a lopsided 59-42 scoreline.

What I do think is worth noting: Iowa’s offense struggled the entire tournament. The defense got it through the Michigan and Illinois games, but Iowa scored 64, 59 and 45 points in three games, not ideal.

I still think this tournament proved that Iowa should be a 2-seed in a week, but that the Hawkeyes have a ways to go to break into that next tier. That may feel like an oxymoron, but that is simply how good the upper, upper tier of the women’s basketball landscape is this season.

The Wolverines blew out Oregon and then watched a replay of their last loss to Iowa play out in eerily similar fashion. If the 44-point showing on Feb. 22 hurt the eyes to watch, I’m sure the 42-point showing on Saturday wasn’t any better.

For as good as Michigan is this season — and yes, this group still is plenty good — Iowa has exposed the Wolverines’ interior weaknesses and forced them into a reliance on perimeter shooting, and the results have been ugly. But Michigan has also played the Hawkeyes extremely well defensively which does matter. This game was ugly both ways with 37 total turnovers.

The Iowa-Michigan stat that stands out the most to me is assist totals: Eighteen for Iowa, seven for Michigan. The Wolverines had nine assists against Iowa the first time around, and 10 assists in the loss to UCLA. They also had just three assists in that defeat to Washington. It seems to be a trend in a lot of their defeats and will be something to watch for in the NCAA Tournament.

A really strong Big Ten Tournament for the Buckeyes on the whole. A hard-fought loss to UCLA that Ohio State truly would not die in despite the Bruins’ best efforts, and that came after a rout of Indiana and a battle of a win against Minnesota.

Looking at the defeat, the Buckeyes stayed within 10 of UCLA despite 12 points on 4-of-14 shooting from Jaloni Cambridge. Chance Gray had an awesome tournament and has been on a tear lately that makes Ohio State so much more explosive offensively. She had 23 points in the UCLA loss and 31 total points in the two victories.

This run should lock Ohio State in for home games in the first two rounds, and it proved to me that the Buckeyes are a contender to make a run. Rewind back to last year — when Ohio State lost to UCLA by 29 then laid an egg in the Round of 32 to Tennessee — and the vibes feel much different this time around.

The Illini were one of two teams to make it out of the opening day and into Friday, first taking down Wisconsin then upsetting Michigan State before the ultimate loss to Iowa.

In general, Illinois battled each of these teams closer than expected in different ways. The Badgers gave the Illini a battle: Gift Uchenna especially stood out to me for a tremendous performance in the losing effort. Illinois won the game by 12, but did not run away with it quite as I expected.

That ended up not mattering against Michigan State, where the Illini were outrebounded, committed more turnovers and converted less efficiently at the line and still took down the ranked Spartans, likely costing them future home games. Illinois won this one with a pure group effort: Five players in double figures while Michigan State relied heavily on Kennedy Blair who scored 30 in the losing effort.

It looked like the tank ran empty in game No. 3 against the Hawkeyes, with Iowa taking a 53-31 lead into the fourth quarter. A 27-11 finish brought the Illini within six by the end, even if the game was decided basically the entire time. Still, a nice final note to end on heading into the tournament, where Illinois appears to be a dangerous middle seed with loads of potential.

I felt like the Ducks needed, at minimum, one solid showing in this Big Ten Tournament to feel fully locked in on Selection Sunday. That ended up not being an issue as Oregon dispersed of Purdue with ease.

But then the Ducks made an exclamation point of a statement by taking down Maryland. Ehis Etute (20 points, 10 rebounds) and Katie Fiso (14 points, 5 assists) really took over in the second half to secure this win. Oluchi Okananwa did all she could for the Terps, finishing with 27 points and three steals. It was a disastrous game for Yarden Garzon (1 of 11), and Maryland was 1 of 15 from three as a unit for the game.

Oregon followed this up with a lopsided defeat to Michigan, but the run was strong enough already to make this not matter. The Ducks are safely in the big dance and likely out of the First Four conversation as well.

My final wrong pick! Not mentioned above was Michigan over Iowa and Maryland over Oregon, but this was the wrong one I felt the silliest about in retrospect.

The Huskies were even more dominant against USC than the 76-64 scoreline suggests. It was a 20-point game after three quarters and USC could not hit a damn thing against this defense. Elle Ladine returned to her vintage March form from last season with 25 points on 10-of-13 shooting while Avery Howell added 18 and nine boards. Salvia Sellers went 0 for 5 and it didn’t matter, really really impressive performance by the Huskies.

As said above, Washington followed that up with a really solid defensive effort against UCLA, the offense just couldn’t match it. The Huskies are a very capable team and, like the Illini, will be a dangerous team around that 7/8-seed line.

The final winner to discuss is the Hoosiers, who got my picks off to a 1 for 1 start with what was the most electric comeback of the entire tournament.

Indiana trailed Nebraska by as much as 20 and had as low as a 1.6% chance to win the game, per Bart Torvik. But the Hoosiers kept fighting, and a mix of heroics from Shay Ciezki and Nevaeh Caffey got the rally going in the second half. Eventually, it was a three by Maya Makalusky that gave Indiana its first lead of the game with 1:06 to go, which it just barely held onto the rest of the way.

This win likely won’t get the Hoosiers into the NCAA Tournament — though they were listed among ESPN’s Next Four Out — but it is great momentum into whatever postseason they enter, and it sets an important starting base for next season. I think the future is bright for Teri Moren’s team if it stays together through the portal.

So those are all the teams that won at least one game in the tournament. Here’s a quick rundown of the 0-1 teams and what I took away from their performances:

I’ll be back after Selection Sunday to talk NCAA Tournament teams. We will have at least 11, and perhaps 12 teams to discuss.

Best time of the year, let’s goooooooooooooooooooo.

Photo Credit: UCLA Women’s Basketball (@UCLAWBB), Twitter

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