TARHEELS CAN'T DAMPEN GREAT SEASON FOR BIG TEN

There's a great exchange in the movie, Rocky, when the loanshark that Rocky works for, Tony Gazzo, has his driver, Buddy, drop off Rocky after a day of collecting. Buddy, who appears on screen only a handful of times but in that brief span makes himself memorable as one of the all-time jerks, looks up at Rocky in the rearview mirror. Balboa's face is pretty scraped up after his fight with Spider Rico the night before and Buddy says to him, "Did you get the license plate number?"

Rocky answers, "Of what?"

"Of the truck that ran over your face?"

On Monday night in Detroit, the truck was an 18-wheeler hauling an oversized load and decked out in Carolina blue, and it smashed the Michigan State Spartans as easily as it has everything else in its path to the school's fifth national championship. The Big Ten champions were no match for the TarHeels, who set numerous offensive records en route to their second blowout victory over Michigan State.

Most fans probably expected to see North Carolina cutting down the nets on the last day of the season, but the ease with which it happened must have surprised some after how well the Spartans had played over the last ten days. Still, Sparty's run to the championship game was just another accomplishment in a great year of basketball for the conference.

Last season, five conference teams finished with an overall losing record and only four schools (Indiana, Michigan State, Purdue and Wisconsin) from the Big Ten were invited to the big dance. Both Michigan State and Wisconsin were able to make it to the sweet sixteen before losing, while Purdue and Indiana failed to make it out of the first weekend. In addition to the poor performance during March Madness (5-4), the conference was embarassed by the early dismissal of Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson after he was caught committing recruiting violations.

This season, the conference featured only two schools below .500 and tied the Big East and SEC for the most representatives in the NCAA Tournament with seven. Overall, the Big Ten went 9-7 and had five wins over higher seeded opponents during the tourney. Moreover, the Big Ten claimed its second straight NIT Title when Penn State defeated Baylor in the championship game in Madison Square Garden.

Perhaps most encouraging were teams like Michigan, Penn State and Illinois who all bounced back from disappointing 2008 seasons to earn post-season berths in 2009 and have solid foundations in place to challenge for big ten supremacy in the very near future.

It was also a year that revealed several individual stars in the making with the entire first-team All Big Ten squad being comprised of sophomores, including conference player of the year Kalin Lucas of Michigan State. Lucas and fellow standouts Talor Battle (PSU), Manny Harris (UM), Jajuan Johnson (PU) and Evan Turner (OSU) ensure that the conference will have some of the best talent in 2010 if they all return to campus.

The Big Ten basketball season might have ended on a sour note in Detroit, but the conference appears to be as strong and as deep as ever, with the future looking very bright.