The Wisconsin Badgers’ 84-71 win over the Iowa Hawkeyes secured their “lock” spot for the NCAA Tournament in the latest Bracketology predictions from ESPN’s Joe Lunardi.
Before the game, Wisconsin was as close to a “lockdown” as possible, but the game had serious implications for the Badgers’ potential seeding. Wisconsin was coming off a loss to the Ohio State Buckeyes, who abandoned their projections after a big week with wins over the Illinois Fighting Illini and Michigan State Spartans.
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A loss to Iowa would have made those projections even worse, and Wisconsin didn’t have another major opportunity to catch up until the season finale on the road against the Purdue Boilermakers. But the win over Iowa gave the Badgers their fifth Quad 1 victory of the season and assured them of the sixth Big Ten “lock” in Lunardi’s projections.
Here’s what constitutes a lock, according to Lunardi.
“Teams that have a near 100% chance of being called by the committee as an at-large selection (if necessary). They would need a significant momentum shift to miss the cut.”
The other five current “locks” in a deep Big Ten so far are Purdue, Illinois, Michigan State, Michigan and Nebraska.
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Currently, the Badgers sit seventh in Lunardi’s latest projections, putting them in line with NC State, Villanova and Utah State. As for the Big Ten teams ahead of them, here are their current projected starting lines:
Michigan (No. 1 seed)
Purdue (No. 2 seed)
Illinois (No. 2 seed)
Nebraska (No. 3 seed)
Michigan State (No. 4 seed)
