Jon Joseph

Two B1G teams in the Men's Final 4, Illinois and Michigan, and 2 B1G teams, Wisconsin and Michigan, in the Frozen 4. Michigan, with a 4-3 win over Minnesota-Duluth, joins Wisconsin as one of the last four teams skating. Wisconsin vs. North Dakota and Michigan vs Denver in the semifinals. And do not forget the women. Michigan's women's basketball team also advances to the Final 4, joining UCLA. The 3rd NCAA postseason tourney with two Big Ten schools in the finals. Many a grape is being squeezed tonight in Ann Arbor.🤪 With both basketball teams in the Final 4 and the ice hockey team in the Frozen 4, it's hard to believe that Wolverines are an endangered species. Go Blue. Go Bruins. And let the champagne flow in Champaign.

Life is only a movie, right? Braylon Mullins, the UConn freshman who hit the winning basket against Duke, played at Greenfield-Central High School in Greenfield, Indiana, a suburb of Indianapolis. Mullins, the 2025 Indiana Mr. High School Basketball Player of the Year, heads home to compete against Illinois in the Final 4. 🤔 Hmmmm.

UCLA's Women's Team, behind the play of All Big Ten Player of the Year Lauren Betts, dunks Duke, 70-58. UCLA moves on to the women's Final 4. The Bruins 35th win of the season sets the Big Record for Women's Basketball. I don't know about kings, but No Dukes are left in the 2026 basketball tourney play, which IMO is A-OK. 😍

Holy Hurley! Duke pulls defeat from the jaws of victory. Duke simply had to hold the ball to run out the clock, but a Duke player passed the ball, the pass was blocked and turned over, and with two seconds left, UConn freshman Braylon Mullins hits a desperation 3 from well beyond the 3-point line - UConn 73 - Duke 72 - and Mullins will never have to pick up a check in the Nutmeg State. Illinois will play UConn in a Final 4 semifinal game in Indianapolis. A Final 4 with two Big Ten teams, a Big 12 team, and a Big East team. Madness indeed. 🤪 ESPN.comUConn rallies, stuns Duke on last-second 3 to reach Final...UConn eliminated No. 1 overall seed Duke from the men's NCAA tournament on Braylon Mullins' 3-pointer with 0.4 seconds left. 36 years later, UConn pays back Duke and Christian Laettner. 😍

The Final Four will be played in Indianapolis. The 1 seed Michigan matches up against 1 seed Arizona on Saturday, April 4, 2026, in a contest featuring KenPom's top two teams. The 3-seed Illinois will play the winner of the 1-seed Duke vs. the 2-seed UConn. With eight minutes remaining, Duke is ahead by 11 points. (Update to follow at the end of the game.) The Big Ten comes in with half of the Final 4, but the semifinal games will be as tough as they can get. Arizona Desert SwarmFinal Four: Arizona men’s basketball to face Michigan in...Your best source for quality Arizona Wildcats news, rumors, analysis, stats and scores from the fan perspective.

The Empire Does Not Strike Back, it Strikes Out of the Tourney - Michigan 95 - Tennessee 62 Half of the Final 4 is B1G! 👌👍😍

U$C does it again, buys the services of another SoCal recruit, and flips off OBD. With the right person at AD and Football GM, and the booster money organized and aligned, a broken Blue Blood is repairing itself. But is the head coach the guy to bring back the days of John McKay, John Robinson, and Pete Carroll? Oregon's visit to SC in Week 4 could be a program-defining game. https://trojanswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/trojans/recruiting/2026/03/29/four-star-offensive-lineman-drew-fielder-commits-usc-football/89375088007/?utm_source=smg-trojanswire-strada&utm_mediu

The Men's Ice Hockey Frozen 4 Will be Played in ... Las Vegas 😁 Wisconsin won the women's team championship, defeating Ohio State 3-2. The Wisconsin men's team upset No. 1 seed Michigan State 4-3 in OT and will play North Dakota in the semifinals on April 9th. No. 1 seed Michigan plays Minnesota-Duluth today, with the winner advancing to the Final 4. The No. 1 seed Michigan men's basketball team plays Tennessee today for a spot in the Final 4. The winner of today's game will play Arizona in a semifinal game in Indianapolis. In the other semifinal game, Illinois will play the winner of today's game between Duke and UConn. GO - GO BLUE! AND THE FIGHTIN' ILLINI TOO!

Dan Mullen, where are you? In Las Vegas, but next season in Lincoln, perhaps? No surprise that The Athletic rates Mullen the top coach in the G6.

Poor-Doo is pasted in San Jose. But hats off to making it to the Elite 8. Arizona 76 - Purdue 61 Next up for the U of A is the winner of tomorrow's game between Michigan and Tennessee. Yet again, Arizona looks like the most complete team in this season's Tournament.

Getting Horny in Houston - In a game delayed for seven minutes when a game horn refused to shut up, Illinois defeats Iowa 71-59 and moves on to the Final 4 in Indianapolis vs. the winner of Duke vs. UConn. Illinois windexed the boards, but poor 3-point shooting by the Illini kept the game close. Another low-scoring game on the court in Houston. Bad sight lines? Hats off to 9-seed Iowa for defeating a number 8, 1, and 2 seed on the way to the Elite 8.

Chicago dropped football in 1939 because the game was becoming too professional. 🤑 I don't expect we'll see Phil the Phoenix, the University of Chicago mascot so named after Chicago recovered from the Great Fire of 1871, on the Maroons football sideline anytime soon. In 1898, Michigan's 12-11 victory over Chicago, which won the conference title for the Wolverines, led to Michigan music student Louis Elbel composing 'The Victors,' praising Michigan for being the Victors Valiant, the Conquering Heroes, and the Champions of the West. Chicago, under coach Amos Alonzo Stagg, was a national power in football. In 41 seasons at Chicago (1892-1932), the Yale All-American went 244-211-27. Referred to as 'the father of modern football,' Stagg's innovations included the huddle, man-in-motion, and numbers on the jersey. Stagg is behind only Kirk Ferentz and Woody Hayes in the number of career wins, 314 wins over 57 years of coaching. When college football was king, and the pros a barnstorming afterthought, the University of Chicago was one of the top programs in the sport. No matter how successful a modern program may be, including Nick Saban's terrific run at Bama, you cannot match this kind of tradition and the influence that echoes into today.

I'm not surprised. It was SC that called a lot of the shots in the Pac-8, 10, and 12. One example was when the conference added Utah and CU, so Larry could save face after Texas told him to take a hike, and SC insisted on the Cali scheduling model so their fans wouldn't miss the annual trip to San Francisco. (Scott adding CU and Utah and taking away SC's preferred revenue share led the way to the cratering of the Conference of Champions.) Ohio State and Michigan have called the shots in the Big Ten since its inception. Other teams on occasion made their mark on the field, including Indiana, which went to the Rose Bowl in 1967, and garnered well-deserved publicity over the last two seasons, but the rivalry game between the Buckeyes and the Wolverines is called The Game for a reason; it is the most-watched Big Ten game year after year. The two programs with the most wins in CFB history: 1 Michigan, 2 Ohio State. When the general public thinks of Big Ten football, it's the games played in the Big House and the Horseshoe that are on the public's mind. Oregon's 2024 conference title and Indiana's conference and national championships in 2025 have not changed the overall perception. While fierce rivals, the two programs have been in unison on almost all B1G things. Michigan's holding out on the private capital deal was the exception. USC joining Michigan in its objection to Petitti's fundraising, if noted at all, was treated like an afterthought. If CFB goes to a 32-team CFB Super Conference, you can bet that the B1G Two will have more influence than OBD and USC. Even when the Patriots were on their Brady roll, Jerry Jones and not Robert Kraft was the media's NFL go-to guy. When the Pac-12 legacy schools win national titles in football and men's basketball, they may move up in the pecking order, but they will not surpass Michigan and Ohio State in the Big Ten's pecking order, even if the titles are won by the Ducks. All animals are equal, except for Wolverines (and Buckeyes 🤔) that are more equal.

A more concise presentation of the SP+ Big Ten rankings - Big Ten football 2026 SP+ rankings are here

Today, it's B1G in the USA - But will the conference seal the deal? Winners and losers of March Madness Sweet 16: Big Ten puts 4 teams in Elite 8