Big Ten’s Michigan-Wisconsin tournament final matchup is a real ‘original’

INDIANAPOLIS — Are you ready for Sunday’s championship game of the Big Ten men’s basketball tournament?

Michigan. Wisconsin. Original 7 conference members. Let’s party like it’s 1896, people.

Maryland almost broke through to the final for the first time, but the Wolverines’ Tre Donaldson refused to let it happen. The blindingly fast guard inbounded the ball to teammate Vlad Goldin with 5.3 seconds left, got it back and raced 80 feet for a left-handed layup in heavy traffic that won it 81-80 at the buzzer.

“He had a running start, and Tre was a five-star football recruit,” a delighted coach Dusty May said.

Tough luck for the second-seeded Terrapins, who had the late lead — after clutch free throws from freshman Derik Queen (31 points) — and almost a chance to score a big one for all the newbies. None of the Big Ten’s expansion schools, starting with Penn State and including Nebraska, Rutgers and Maryland — not to mention UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington — has won this 27-year-old tournament.

Of course, the same could be said of Indiana, Minnesota and Northwestern, but who’s keeping score?

If you were wondering which seven schools formed the original version of the conference, here goes: Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Northwestern, Purdue, Wisconsin and everybody’s favorite basketball superpower, the University of Chicago.

Fifth-seeded Wisconsin, which nipped top-seeded Michigan State 77-74 in the other semifinal, is in the Big Ten final for the 10th time, the most for any school. The Badgers have won the tournament three times, trailing Michigan State (six), Illinois (four) and Ohio State (four). Michigan, the second seed this time, won it back-to-back in 2017 and 2018.

The Wolf-erine shows up big

Glencoe 7-footer Danny Wolf was great for the Wolverines, scoring 21 points and pulling down 14 rebounds. Fellow 7-footer Goldin was just as stellar, with 25 and 10. Together, they helped their team outrebound the Terps by an almost unheard-of margin of 41-18.

Wolf transferred in from Yale during the offseason, while Goldin came from Florida Atlantic and Donaldson from Auburn. Just another good team with lots of new pieces from the transfer portal. They’re everywhere.

“I think when we all got to campus 10 months ago, we knew exactly what we could do and what we could be,” Wolf said.

We’re fresh out

Queen and Michigan State’s Jase Richardson were the last ones standing from one of the more remarkable groups of Big Ten freshmen to come around in quite some time.

Rutgers’ Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey lost right away, to USC. Illinois’ Kasparas Jakucionis and Will Riley went down in the quarterfinals against Maryland. All four of those guys, plus Queen and Richardson, are projected as NBA first-round picks this year. Some mock drafts have all five going in the top 10 picks.