The Big Ten struggled mightily in basketball last year, fielding only four teams in the NCAA Tournament. However, it is a new year and 2019 looks to be a great one for the Big Ten. As it stands right now, there are ten teams that look to have legitimate chances to make the tournament, which would be a massive improvement from just one year ago.

Michigan, Michigan State, Maryland, Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio State, Purdue, Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska all have a very legitimate chance at making the tournament so long as they don’t all beat up on each other. The Big Ten came into the season with the toughest strength of schedule and currently holds the largest average margin of victory, proving that they are the real deal.

As it stands right now, not only are ten teams projected to be in the NCAA tournament, all ten of those teams besides Nebraska are projected to be a 9-seed or better. Neil Greenberg from the Washington Post shows Michigan with a 40% chance to make the Final Four, but they aren’t the only team out of Michigan making some noise. He also has Michigan State with pretty good odds to make the Final Four as well, showing them at 26%.

The Big Ten became the first conference in the history of college basketball to play 20 conference games in 2019, and it will do one of two things. The Big Ten can either benefit largely because of the strength of schedule that twenty conference games presents, or it can be their kryptonite as there will be a lot of “friendly fire” while they dish out losses to one another.

Regardless, even with the always powerful ACC doing their thing with Virginia, North Carolina and Duke at the top, I think the Big Ten could potentially still have the edge in terms of depth. The one area that the ACC may be stronger is at the very top, as the Big Ten has two elite schools in Michigan and Michigan State, and the ACC has the big three that I listed above. Look for a Big Ten vs ACC battle come March.