All Big Ten schools participated in the tournament. Teams were seeded by 2010–11 Big Ten Conference season record, with a tiebreaker system to seed teams with identical conference records (Tie-breaking Procedure.[2] The top 5 teams received a first round bye.
The seeding for the tournament was as follows:
Seed
School
Conf
Overall
Tiebreaker
#1
Michigan State
13–3
25–4
#2
Penn State
11–5
22–8
#3
Michigan
10–6
17–11
5–0 vs. IOWA/OSU/WISC
#4
Iowa
10–6
22–7
2–2 vs. MICH/OSU/WISC
#5
Ohio State
10–6
19–9
2–3 vs. MICH/IOWA/WISC
#6
Wisconsin
10–6
15–14
0–4 vs. MICH/IOWA/OSU
#7
Purdue
9–7
20–10
#8
Northwestern
6–10
18–12
#9
Minnesota
4–12
12–18
#10
Indiana
3–13
9–20
#11
Illinois
2–14
8–22
Schedule
Session
Game
Time*
Matchup#
Television
Score
First Round - Thursday, March 3
1
1
2:00pm
#7 Purdue vs #10 Indiana
BTN
66–62
2
4:30pm
#6 Wisconsin vs #11 Illinois
BTN
63–56
3
7:00pm
#8 Northwestern vs #9 Minnesota
BTN
53–44
Quarterfinals - Friday, March 4
2
4
11:30am
#2 Penn State vs #7 Purdue
BTN
73–61
5
2:00pm
#3 Michigan vs #11 Illinois
BTN
55–47
3
6
6:00pm
#1 Michigan State vs #8 Northwestern
BTN
56–25
7
8:30pm
#4 Iowa vs #5 Ohio State
BTN
71–61
Semifinals - Saturday, March 5
4
8
5:00pm
#2 Penn State vs #11 Illinois
BTN
79–64
9
7:30pm
#1 Michigan State vs #5 Ohio State
BTN
72–57
Championship Game - Sunday, March 6
5
10
3:30pm
#2 Penn State vs #5 Ohio State
ESPN2
84–70
*Game Times in ET. #-Rankings denote tournament seeding.