As we reach the end of January it means one thing in the college basketball world: March is just around the corner. For much of the Big Ten simply reaching the NCAA Tournament feels like a right. It is a 14 (soon to be 16) team league and each year pretty half, if not more, of the league makes it. In the latest bracketology from ESPN yesterday Joe Lunardi had nine teams in the field with an additional two listed in the first eight out on the Bubble.

Getting nine in is not exactly unprecedented. In each of the last two seasons nine teams made the field. In 2020 the conference looked like it could potentially get 10 teams in before the event was cancelled. Eight teams got in back in 2019. You have to go back to 2018 for the last time that less than half the league got in, as that year only four teams made the cut in a very down year for the league (Purdue, Michigan, Michigan State, and Ohio State).

There is a very good chance that eight or nine schools make it this year once again. Last year the highest rated team in the NET rankings that missed the field was Oklahoma at 40. Indiana was a First Four team at 44, while Miami (FL) finished at 47 even after a run to the Elite Eight.

You can safely assume that a team is “in the running” if it is above 50 in the NET rankings. Here is where the Big Ten stands as of this morning’s rankings: