CHICAGO – The Big Ten tournament starts Thursday, and it's not hard to see why Michigan State coach Tom Izzo declared it one of the best ever. And by best ever, he didn't just mean best Big Ten tournament.

"We're looking forward to one of the great conference tournaments of all time, if you ask me," Izzo said. "When you look at the ranked teams and the teams that aren't ranked and everyone else, it should be a heck of a Big Ten tournament in Chicago."

The league is tops in the power ratings and boasts five teams ranked in the top 25, including four in the top 10: No. 3 Indiana, No. 6 Michigan, No. 8 Michigan State and No. 10 Ohio State.

One of those top-10 teams — Michigan — didn't even get one of the four first-round byes. Instead, the Wolverines face Penn State on Thursday after falling a point short of sharing the conference championship with a 72-71 loss to Indiana on Sunday.

Should the Hoosiers win the conference tournament, it would certainly secure a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, another notch for a program knocked to the ground not too long ago. It's something the Hoosiers haven't done since the Big Ten started holding a tourney back in 1998. Indiana plays its first game Friday against the winner of Thursday's opener between the Gophers and Illinois.

"You just told me something that I didn't know," Indiana coach Tom Crean said. "That's how little concerned we are about the negatives, what hasn't happened. It's really not anything we'll reflect on."

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