And then there were four.
One of my hot takes is that it is harder to win a Big Ten regular season championship than reach a Final Four. Winning the Big Ten (or any conference, for that matter) is sustained excellence over 3 months with true road games in hostile venues. Reaching a Final Four can be as simple as “a team got hot for four games over nine days”. Yes, it is very cold comfort for a school that has not reached the promised land in over 40 years, but when the likes of George Mason, VCU, Butler, Wichita State, and some bad Syracuse & Michigan State teams have made it to the Final weekend there is definitely a “they got hot at the right time” involved.