Indiana, Iowa, Maryland top stacked women's Big Ten Tournament field

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The final day of a top-notchregular season in the Big Ten featured a last-second 3-pointer bythe best player in the league that stopped the first-place team’s14-game winning streak.

If Iowa’s victory over Indiana on Caitlin Clark’scatch-and-shoot winner from the wing was any indication of thecurrent quality of the competition, the conference tournament inMinneapolis this week will be quite the show.

Boasting three of the top seven teams in the latest AssociatedPress poll with Indiana (No. 2), Maryland (No. 5) and Iowa (No. 7),the Big Ten is carrying a strong case into March for being thetoughest league in the country. While defending champion SouthCarolina remains the runaway NCAA title favorite, the Hoosiers,Terrapins and Hawkeyes all have legitimate designs on reaching theFinal Four in Dallas, too.

“I think it’s going to be one of the better tournaments justbecause of the parity and the talent that’s in this league thisyear,” said Indiana coach Teri Moren, whose team produced theprogram’s first regular season title in 40 years.

Ohio State (No. 14) and Michigan (No. 17) are the other tworanked teams that are projected as top-four NCAA Tournament seeds,giving the Big Ten by far the most of any conference.

Michigan tied with Illinois for fifth place. They’ll enter thebracket in the second round on Thursday. Indiana, Iowa, Marylandand Ohio State earned the coveted double byes and start in thequarterfinals on Friday at Target Center, which hosted the NCAAWomen’s Final Four last year.

The Buckeyes, who were ranked as high as second in the AP pollin late January, have lost six of their last 10 games. But theysecured their top-four seed with a blowout win at Michigan lastweek, an encouraging sign for coach Kevin McGuff.

“I think we’ve seen pretty much everything you will see, sohopefully that will give us an advantage heading into March,”McGuff said. “Just keep this competitive spirit and fire.”

BACKING THE BLACK AND GOLD

Indianapolis hosted 25 of the first 28 editions of theconference tournament, with one stop (2001) in Grand Rapids,Michigan, and two trips (2013, 2015) to suburban Chicago. Thistwo-year commitment to Minneapolis clearly helps the defending BigTen Tournament champion Hawkeyes, with the Iowa border a two-hourdrive from the Twin Cities and the Iowa campus less than five hoursaway.

Iowa is third in the NCAA in attendance, with an average homecrowd of more than 10,700 that set the Big Ten women’s record. TheHawkeyes announced a total of 15,056 on Sunday against Indiana.

They’ll welcome the extra support for a potential semifinalmatchup on Saturday afternoon against Maryland, which handed themtheir worst loss of the season last week. The Terrapins have wonsix straight games, including two against Ohio State during thestreak.

“Everybody knows your play calls, you know each other’s playersby name,” Iowa co-star Monika Czinano said. “It’s truly just agrind there, but it’s so much fun though. There’s so much joy init, too. Our group has been there.”

WHAT COMES NEXT

The last Big Ten team to reach the national championship gamewas Michigan State in 2005, though Maryland (2006) and Rutgers(2007) got there in subsequent seasons while they were still inother leagues. Maryland (2014, 2015) is the only team to make theFinal Four since then.

“We really need to get a team to the Final Four,” said MeganKahn, the Big Ten’s vice president of women’s basketball. “I thinkthat’s our next step, to continue to garner that national level ofrespect in how strong our league is.”

HOSTS WITH THE MOST?

Fledgling Minnesota finished the regular season just 11-18 andhas the No. 12 seed, pitted against No. 13 seed Penn State to tipoff the tournament on Wednesday afternoon. No. 14 seed Northwesternplays No. 11 seed Rutgers in the other first round game.

The Gophers, whose top six scorers are all freshmen orsophomores, have shown some signs of progress lately with theiryoung lineup. They beat Nebraska and Purdue in their final two homegames, both NCAA Tournament bubble teams.

“I feel good, and I think they feel good, and they should,”coach Lindsay Whalen said. “We’re starting to see, when we continueto pour into each other, they have a chance to be a really specialgroup.”