It will be Ohio State vs. Michigan State for Big 10 title

INDIANAPOLIS — In less than five minutes, Ohio State's Jared Sullinger had Michigan on the ropes.

The bruising 265-pound forward scored 8 of Ohio State's first 10 points to set the tone. Once Michigan started double teaming to compensate, other Buckeyes took advantage.

Sullinger scored 24 points, Deshaun Thomas scored 22 points, and William Buford added 10 to help No. 7 Ohio State defeat No. 10 Michigan 77-55 on Saturday in the Big Ten tournament semifinals.

Sullinger sensed he was breaking Michigan's spirit with his early success.

“When I feel that, I understand that my teammates are going to come down to me,” he said. “I started passing it out and (Michigan) didn't know what to do. I think it's awesome when you can keep a defense on its toes.”

Ohio State's performance left an impression on Michigan coach John Beilein.

“I've seen some really good teams that have played some really good games,” he said. “That's as good of a game as I've ever seen a college team play.”

The third-seeded Buckeyes (27-6), advanced to play No. 8 Michigan State in the final today.

Michigan State defeated No. 14 Wisconsin in the other semifinal Saturday to set up what in boxing lingo is a title unification bout.

Ohio State, Michigan State and Michigan tied for the conference regular-season title. Michigan has been knocked out of the tournament, and now, just two remain, each with the chance to claim both the regular-season and tournament titles and become an undisputed champion.

There's more. With No. 3 Kansas and No. 6 Duke already having lost in conference tournaments, the door to a No. 1 seed might be open for the winner of today's final.

“I really don't care,” Sullinger said. “The NCAA — if we're No. 1, No. 2 or No. 3, we just want to get there. We just want to play.”

Tim Hardaway, Jr., led No. 2 seed Michigan (24-9) with 13 points, but he made just 3 of 10 shots. Trey Burke, Michigan's other star player, scored 5 points on 1-for-11 shooting and had 8 turnovers while being guarded primarily by Aaron Craft, the conference's defensive player of the year.

Michigan St. 65, Wisconsin 52:

Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan kept searching for an explanation as to what went wrong Saturday.

Eventually, he settled on this: The Badgers just ran out of steam.

Michigan State used runs of 13-0, 11-0 and 13-2 to rally from an early deficit and defeat Wisconsin.

“These guys, that was a hard-fought game yesterday, that's a hard-fought game today,” Ryan said. “That 13-0 run in the second half showed me something about our guys.

“I don't know what we had left. Michigan State obviously had more, but there were some runs in that game that were, more so than usual.”

The Badgers (24-9) were led by Jordan Taylor with 19 points and Ryan Evans with 18 but shot just 34.7 percent from the field and committed an uncharacteristic 12 turnovers, their highest total in five games.

Whether the loss will affect Wisconsin's seeding for next week's NCAA Tournament will be determined a few blocks away from Bankers Life Fieldhouse.

But Wisconsin, which had won tourney titles in 2004 and 2008, was hoping that it could rekindle some election-year magic. It didn't work this time.

“You've got to shoot better than that, and we had some guys that didn't score,” Ryan said. “We need it from everybody, we need bunches scoring, and when we get that, we've proven 24 times that we can get some things done.”

Michigan State proved it could finish the job against a good team after blowing two chances to clinch the outright league title last week.

Draymond Green led the Spartans with 14 points and 16 rebounds, and Austin Thornton scored all 12 of his points on 3-pointers.

It's the first time since 2000, when Michigan State (26-7) won its second national championship, that it will play for the league's postseason title.

“It's just another opportunity for us. We had two chances to win the Big Ten outright; we didn't do it,” Green said.

“You can't really make up for it, but it's an opportunity to feel better about it if we get this conference tournament championship. It's just another way to leave that footprint, leave your legacy.”