Now that the Nebraska baseball team has captured the Big Ten regular season baseball title it’s time for the Huskers to get ready for their first games as the top seed in the conference. The tournament kicks off on Wednesday morning, but Nebraska won’t be playing until that evening, as they’ll take on the Purdue Boilermakers. Much like the Huskers had to wait until the final day of the regular season in order to take the top spot, Purdue’s bid just to make the tournament came down to their last series of the season.
Nebraska enters as hottest team in the Big Ten
While the Huskers are usually having to play the underdog upstart in the Big Ten tournament, the Nebraska baseball team is not only the top seed, but they’re also the hottest team in the conference. They are the hottest team in the B1G despite the fact that they lost the first game of their final series against Penn State.
Nebraska has won eight of its last 10 on its way to a 34-18 record. That streak managed to keep the Huskers just ahead of the Michigan Wolverines baseball team which finished the regular season with 42 victories and a 16-8 record. Michigan was almost as hot as they finished the year with a 7-3 run.
The oddity of the Big Ten baseball schedule means Nebraska and Purdue never matched up against each other in the regular season.
The Boilermakers are one of the only conference teams the Huskers didn’t square off against. Should the Huskers win their first round game, they’ll see either Maryland or Iowa. The Big Red took two of three against Maryland but actually lost the season series against the Hawkeyes.
The rest of the field
The other side of the bracket sees Minnesota taking on Indiana, with the Golden Gophers the third seed in the tournament after losing two of three to Purdue over the weekend.
Michigan has jumped into the number two seed and will take on seventh seed Northwestern. The Golden Gophers and Hoosiers’ game is the first of the tourney, starting at 9 am.
The Michigan game is the second in the tourney, starting at 1:30 pm and the Nebraska baseball team being the third game of the day. The first day of the tournament concludes with Maryland and Iowa at 7:30 pm.
Should the Huskers win their opening round game, they’ll be playing Thursday night at 7:30 pm. Should they lose to Purdue they’ll be playing on Thursday afternoon at 12:30 pm. Win twice and the Cornhuskers will get a day off before they start their championship run on Saturday.
