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2018 Big Ten Tournament bracket is set

By Zac Snyder

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 12: The Michigan Wolverines celebrate with the trophy after the Wolverines defeated the Wisconsin Badgers to win the Big Ten Basketball Tournament Championship game at Verizon Center on March 12, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 12: The Michigan Wolverines celebrate with the trophy after the Wolverines defeated the Wisconsin Badgers to win the Big Ten Basketball Tournament Championship game at Verizon Center on March 12, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images) /
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With regular season play done the Big Ten moves on to Madison Square Garden for the 2018 Big Ten Tournament. Michigan State will be the top seed.

The Big Ten is taking their conference basketball tournament to New York’s Madison Square Garden for the first time. Because of a scheduling conflict, the conference decided to bump up the tournament by one week to be able to play at one of the World’s most famous arenas. Because of that, the Big Ten Tournament gets started this week and will have the Power Five conference tournament stage to itself.

Play will begin on Wednesday evening with a pair of games. Only the 11-14 seeds have to play on the opening day of the tournament with the top ten all receiving byes. It’s a double-bye for the top four seeds. 12th-seeded Iowa will play 13th-seeded Illinois in Wednesday’s first game (5:30 p.m. ET) with 11th-seeded Minnesota facing 14th-seeded Rutgers in the Wednesday nightcap.

That first game on Wednesday will be of interest to the Michigan Wolverines (seeded fifth) as they will take on the winner on Thursday at approximately 2:30 p.m. ET. That will be the second game of the day, following Maryland (8 seed) and Wisconsin (9 seed).

Thursday’s evening session will see Penn State and Northwestern meet in the 7-10 game, followed by sixth-seeded Indiana against the winner of Minnesota-Rutgers.

The top four seeds finally see action on Friday, starting with the top-seeded Michigan State Spartans, who will play either Maryland or Wisconsin at noon ET. Fourth-seeded Nebraska will get either Michigan, Illinois or Iowa depending on who reaches the quarterfinals for a 2:30 p.m. ET game.

Ohio State, the two seed, will meet the Penn State-Northwestern winner at 6:30 while Purdue, seeded third, gets their conference tournament started against the survivor of Minnesota, Rutgers and Indiana.

Conference semifinals are scheduled to be played back-to-back on Saturday at 2:00 p.m. ET and approximately 4:30 p.m. ET. The final will be played on Sunday afternoon at 4:30 p.m. ET.

Next: MSU wins outright title, clinches number one seed in B1G

All games through the quarterfinals will be televised on Big Ten Network. The semifinals and finals will air on CBS.

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