Northwestern’s 90-66 rout of Minnesota on Saturday night, combined with Purdue’s 78-70 win over Wisconsin on Sunday, secured a double bye into the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Tournament for the Wildcats.
Regular-season champion Purdue, Illinois, Nebraska and Northwestern will be the top four seeds this week at the Target Center in Minneapolis and will begin play Friday. The Illini were locked into the No. 2 seed regardless of Sunday night’s result at Iowa.
Four more games Sunday will determine the remainder of the seeding, although Michigan is locked in as the No. 14 seed.
If Purdue and Northwestern win their quarterfinals, the Wildcats would get a shot at knocking off the Boilermakers again. They upset Purdue at Welsh-Ryan Arena both last season and in December before losing in overtime in January at Mackey Arena.
