Minnesota Claims No. 2 Seed in Big Ten Tournament
The Minnesota baseball team (38-14, 18-9) will be the No. 2 seed in the upcoming Big Ten Tournament at Ann Arbor, Mich. on May 23-27. The Golden Gophers will play the highest seeded winner of the two games from day one on Thursday, May 24 at 2:35 p.m. (CT).
Minnesota clinched the second seed in the tournament when Penn State lost to Ohio State 3-2 in their series finale. Despite the fact that the Golden Gophers dropped their season finale 10-9 at Indiana, they ended up finishing in second place at 18-9. Minnesota and Penn State each finished with a .667 winning percentage (Penn State at 20-10 and Minnesota at 18-9), but the Golden Gophers won two out of three in the series earlier this year at Penn State which gave them the tiebreaker.
Fourth-seeded Iowa will face No. 5 Illinois on Wednesday, May 23 at 11:05 a.m. (CT) in the first game of the tournament. Third-seeded Penn State will face No. 6 Ohio State, for the fifth time in a row, at 2:35 p.m. (CT) on May 23 at 2:35 p.m. (CT)
The losers of the first two games will play on Thursday, May 24 at 11 a.m. (CT) in an elimination game. Following Minnesota's game on Thursday, top-seeded Michigan will face the lowest seeded winner of the first two games at 6:05 p.m. (CT).
This marks the ninth year in a row that Minnesota has made the Big Ten Tournament. The last year the Golden Gophers did not play in the tournament was 1997. This is the fifth time since the tournament went to six teams in 2000 that the Golden Gophers have earned one of the top two seeds to receive a bye from the first games.
Minnesota has advanced to a conference record six Big Ten Tournament Championship games in a row. That streak started in 2001 when the Golden Gophers defeated Michigan in the tournament championship at Ohio State. Minnesota played Ohio State four straight times in the Big Ten Tournament Championship from 2002 to 2005. Last year, the Golden Gophers faced Michigan in the championship.
The Golden Gophers have won eight Big Ten Tournament Championships (1982, 1985, 1988, 1992, 1993, 1998, 2001, 2004) overall, and are 49-31 in 23 Big Ten Tournament appearances.
