Couch: For the Big Ten in this NCAA tournament, it's put up or pipe down

I have a friend who shall remain nameless who, to put it kindly, is skeptical about the strength of the Big Ten as a basketball conference, this year as much as ever. I stick up for the league during our conversations every time. I tell him how deep the conference is, how these teams just need to get away from each other, how capable the top teams are this season — for real this time — and how many NBA lottery picks they have.

I tell him that I think this league, this year, is built for March.

And then Purdue or Illinois immediately loses another game and he remains unimpressed.

Well, it’s time for the Big Ten to put up or pipe down.

I’m not someone who believes the NCAA tournament fairly measures the strength of a league. It certainly doesn’t measure a league’s depth. This is a tournament about matchups. The Big Ten had some bad ones last year early on — namely Iowa vs. Oregon, Illinois vs. Loyola Chicago and even Ohio State vs. Oral Roberts, which looked like the world’s best 15 seed since Middle Tennessee State.

The league had some miserable performances, too, last March — see Purdue’s effort vs. North Texas and Brad Underwood’s coaching vs. Loyola — and one brutal collapse — Rutgers’ final minute against Houston — which ruined a potential run.

Whatevs. Stuff happens.

That’s not going to fly this year in this NCAA tournament. There’s too much high-end Big Ten talent and too many rosters with too much sweat equity to buy any excuse for a first-weekend thud. Iowa, Purdue and Illinois, especially, have been thinking about this moment for a year. And I believe they have rosters that are better equipped to make a move. Even the Illini post-Ayo Dosunmu. Definitely Iowa post-Luka Garza.

The matchups don’t look awful, either, though no one realized a couple of them were a year ago until after the fact.

The Big Ten doesn’t have to win a national championship to prove its teeth — no matter what my friend says. It would help make its case. Yet the strength of a league is not defined by one team. Final Four appearances over time and by how many different programs, I think, are a better gauge of a conference’s strength at the top.

The Big Ten has sent six different programs to 14 Final Fours in the 20 NCAA tournaments since the conference won its last national title (Michigan State in 2000). It’s had four different programs reach seven Final Four just since 2012.

No league has done better.

The ACC also has 14 Final Fours in the last 20 tournaments, but just five different schools have done it, and that celebrated basketball league has only five Final Four appearances since 2012, by three different schools.

The Big 12 has 11 Final Four appearances in the last 20 tournaments, by six different programs, like the Big Ten, though just five Final Fours since 2012, by four different schools.

The SEC has 10 Final Four appearances in the last two decades by five different teams, six since 2012 by four programs.

The Pac-12, which dominated the Big Dance (and the Big Ten) a year ago, barely registers in this argument. The Pac-12 has six Final Four appearances in the last 20 tournaments, by three different schools, and two Final Fours since 2012, by two programs.

So if you’re going to bring down the Big Ten by arguing its lack of recent national championships, while giving Wake Forest credit for Duke’s work, maybe also look at the Final Fours, my friend.

MORE: Couch: 3 quick takes on Michigan State's NCAA tournament draw

All of that said, the truer measure THIS season for THIS Big Ten, I think, is reaching the second weekend, the Sweet 16 or Elite Eight. Because if you’re going to take a snapshot of a league in a given year, the best league overall, with some outstanding teams, could run into some hard luck or unfortunate matchups and not reach a Final Four. And given that last year the Big Ten had four top 4 seeds not make it out of the first weekend — two of them losing in the first round — let’s start there in measuring what this league actually is right now in terms of depth at the top.

Purdue, is the 3 seed in the East, with Yale as its opening opponent, before a likely stiffer test against Texas or Virginia Tech. Wisconsin is the 3 seed in the Midwest, opening play in Milwaukee against Colgate, before facing either an LSU team that just fired its coach or an Iowa State team that’s been falling apart. Illinois is the 4 seed in the South, playing Chattanooga and then perhaps Houston. Iowa might be a 5 seed, but the Hawkeyes are as hot as any program in the country, facing Richmond and then, maybe, Providence.

No excuses.

These aren’t just gritty teams with experience or even just college stars. Purdue (Jaden Ivey), Iowa (Keegan Murray) and Wisconsin (Johnny Davis) each have bona fide NBA lottery picks. Murray and Davis were first-team AP All-Americans. As was Illinois’ Kofi Cockburn, for the second straight year, and he’s a more well-rounded center this season.

The Big Ten hasn’t had three NBA lottery selections in the same year since Kendall Gill, Willie Burton and Rumeal Robinson in 1990.

Beyond the aforementioned four, there are teams — Michigan State and Michigan included — that have shown the capability of being and beating good teams on a given night. With nine teams in the field overall and four of them in favorable spots to reach the Sweet 16, the Big Ten can’t fall short of having three teams in the second weekend and pretend it’s the behemoth this season that I insist it is.

The league either puts up or shuts up. Me, too.

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Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: For the Big Ten in this NCAA tournament, it's put up or pipe down