March 14-17 at Chicago

All-kenpom: Cody Zeller, Indiana (kPOY); Trey Burke, Michigan; Deshaun Thomas, Ohio State; Victor Oladipo, Indiana; Jared Berggren, Wisconsin.

Big Ten teams get one more shot at beating each other up before they are set free to pummel the country’s other teams. I’m a little surprised nobody has mentioned that it will be more difficult to win the Big Ten tourney than the NCAA tourney, as we heard a bazillion times in 2011 regarding the Big East. I think the consensus among any group of rational humans would be that Indiana is the best team in the country, and yet there’s almost a 2-in-3 shot of them leaving Chicago with a sixth loss. Cody Zeller takes the Big Ten kPOY, which is the only POY he’ll be winning this season. But a 122 ORtg on 26% usage is not something that’s matched by too many players across the country, regardless of team quality. Throw in seven drawn fouls per 40 minutes, and there’s a case Zeller’s sophomore season has been severely underappreciated.

Numbers listed are the probabilities of a team advancing to each round. Unfamiliar with log5? Here’s more than you want to know.

                Qtrs Semis Final Champ
 1 Indiana       100  81.8  57.2  39.9
 2 Ohio St.      100  83.9  48.8  21.1
 3 Michigan St.  100  72.6  38.2  15.5
 4 Wisconsin     100  52.2  18.9   9.4
 5 Michigan     92.2  47.1  17.5   8.9
 6 Iowa         78.5  25.0   8.8   2.2
 9 Minnesota    60.6  12.5   4.7   1.8
 7 Purdue       73.5  14.0   3.6   0.6
 8 Illinois     39.4   5.7   1.6   0.5
11 Northwestern 21.5   2.4   0.3   0.03
10 Nebraska     26.5   2.1   0.2   0.02
12 Penn St.      7.8   0.6   0.04  0.003