Feb. 7, 2014
2014 Tournament Bracket | Big Ten Tournament History
ROSEMONT, Ill. -- The conference office announced today that the Big Ten Baseball Tournament will feature an eight-team field for the first time in conference history, beginning with the 2014 event. The 2014 Big Ten Baseball Tournament will be held May 21-25 at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Neb., home of the College World Series.
The tournament's double-elimination format will culminate with a single championship game on Sunday, with the winner earning the tournament title and the conference's automatic berth to the NCAA Championship. All eight teams will begin play in one of two brackets, with the No. 1, No. 4, No. 5 and No. 8 seeds appearing in one bracket and the No. 2, No. 3, No. 6 and No. 7 seeds appearing in the other bracket.
The tournament begins with four contests on Wednesday and Thursday and two games slated for Friday. Saturday will feature the winners of each bracket facing the remaining one-loss team from the opposite bracket in the semifinals. As many as four games are scheduled for Saturday, with the opportunity for two if necessary games to be played to determine Sunday's championship game participants.
The full 2014 Big Ten Tournament bracket is available HERE. Game times and television information will be available at a later date. The Big Ten Network has provided live television coverage of every game at the Big Ten Tournament the last five seasons.
The Big Ten Baseball Tournament has been played annually since 1981, with a four-team field through 1999 and a six-team event from 2000-2013. Six different schools have won the Big Ten Baseball Tournament, with Minnesota leading all conference programs with nine titles. Michigan and Ohio State have each won eight conference tournaments, followed by Illinois with four tournament crowns, Indiana with three and Purdue with one.
The Boilermakers won the 2012 Big Ten Tournament but saw their program-long streak of five consecutive tourney berths snapped last season. It was the longest active run in the league at the time. Ohio State's three-year streak is now the longest active run. Six different teams won the tournament each year from 2007 through 2012.
Purdue has qualified for the Big Ten Tournament eight times in the last 10 years while making 10 appearances total in Doug Schreiber's first 15 seasons as head coach. The Boilermakers have qualified for tournament field 16 times since the tournament's inception in 1981. Purdue is 18-30 all-time at the Big Ten Tournament and has gone two-and-out only four times in its 16 appearances, including just once (2001) under Schreiber.
Opening day of the college baseball season is Friday, Feb. 14, with all 11 Big Ten teams beginning their new campaigns. The Boilermakers open in Knoxville, Tenn., where they will play Nebraska-Omaha and Tennessee twice apiece the first weekend. The 2014 season opener against UNO is set for noon on Feb. 14.