The Big Ten Field Hockey Tournament Presented by Allstate bracket is set following Friday afternoon's four regular season finales, and postseason action is scheduled to get underway this Wednesday.
The three quarterfinal matchups are scheduled to take place on Wednesday, November 4, followed by the two semifinal contests on Friday, November 6, and the conference championship game on Sunday, November 8.
Seven teams in the nine-team Big Ten qualified for the conference tournament, including one that did not do so a year ago (or the year before that). How do these seven teams stack up heading into the postseason?
7. Ohio State Buckeyes (7-10, 2-6 Big Ten)
Quarterfinal matchup: No. 7 seed Ohio State vs. No. 2 seed Maryland
Give Ohio State a ton of credit for getting here. After an 0-6 start in Big Ten play and one-goal losses to four different Big Ten teams, they took care of business when they needed to by beating Michigan State and Michigan to close out the regular season and qualify for the tournament.
That being said, being in close games and winning them are two different things. At 2-6, Ohio State is the only team in the Big Ten Tournament with a losing record, and the only two teams they beat went 1-15 in the conference, with the one win being 1-7 Michigan's win over 0-8 Michigan State.
Simply remaining competitive with a Maryland team that crushed them 4-0 in mid-October might qualify as a moral victory after what had initially appeared to be a lost season.
6. Indiana Hoosiers (9-7, 4-4 Big Ten)
Quarterfinal matchup: No. 5 seed Indiana vs. No. 4 seed Rutgers
Indiana comes into the Big Ten Tournament sputtering, having finished the season just 4-4 in conference play after starting 4-0. That being said, that perfect 4-0 record was already a bit misleading, since they split a doubleheader with Iowa and only one of the games, the game Indiana won, actually counted toward the conference standings.
But that brings up an interesting point. The only three Big Ten teams they did not lose to were Ohio State, Michigan, and Michigan State. Ohio State beat Michigan and Michigan State, Michigan beat Michigan State, and none of the three won another Big Ten game (0-18 combined).
Indiana now has a chance to right the ship and to prove they can beat strong competition against a Rutgers team that came back to beat them in a closely contested regular season finale this past weekend.
5. Rutgers Scarlet Knights (11-7, 5-3 Big Ten)
Quarterfinal matchup: No. 4 seed Rutgers vs. No. 5 seed Indiana
Rutgers quietly went about their business all season long and did exactly what they needed to do (and a bit more) to comfortably qualify for the postseason, improving upon their record from 2025 despite a handful of key offseason departures.
They finished in the middle of the pack in the conference in just about every notable metric and statistic that exists, and they capped off the regular season with a comeback victory over Indiana, after a strong showing against top-ranked Northwestern less than a week prior.
The Indiana game ultimately ended up being the difference between Rutgers getting the No. 4 seed or the No. 5 seed in a first-round matchup against Indiana either way. Having secured the higher seed, can they now win the one that really counts?
4. Iowa Hawkeyes (12-4, 4-4 Big Ten)
Quarterfinal matchup: No. 6 seed Iowa vs. No. 3 seed Penn State
We've said all year that head-to-head matters but cannot be the be-all and end-all, and that's precisely why we have Iowa ranked ahead of a Rutgers team that beat them in a shootout heading into the postseason.
Suggesting that Iowa is under-seeded at No. 6 would be a massive understatement. As we referenced about Indiana, Iowa was naturally disadvantaged in the seeding process by the fact that their win over the Hoosiers didn't actually count toward the Big Ten standings, while their loss did.
The reality is that Northwestern, Maryland, and Rutgers are the only three teams that Iowa played and failed to beat in 2026. Had their win over Indiana counted toward the Big Ten standings, their regular season finale against Maryland would have been a direct battle for the No. 2 seed. They are much more dangerous than their No. 6 seed would indicate. Think about it; they're behind five Big Ten teams in the bracket, yet they lost four total games all year.
The defense is a bit suspect, with the second lowest save percentage among Big Ten Tournament qualifiers, and it's hard to imagine them recording back-to-back shutouts against a resurgent Penn State team. But they're still led by the top two scorers in the conference in Dionne van Aalsum and Frederique van Cleef, and they can keep pace with anybody to potentially make a deep run.
3. Maryland Terrapins (16-1, 7-1 Big Ten)
Quarterfinal matchup: No. 2 seed Maryland vs. No. 7 seed Ohio State
We're still waiting for the "Thank you, Penn State" social media posts after the upset of the year resulted in Maryland being crowned co-champions of the Big Ten regular season title, while watching from their phones and TV screens after their own regular season finale win over Iowa in College Park. Only kidding, of course.
Maryland had an incredible season and clinched a share of the Big Ten regular season championship with a 7-1 record after going unbeaten in non-conference play with three ranked wins. While they were denied the tournament's No. 1 seed because of their head-to-head loss against Northwestern, they finished the season No. 1 in the RPI and with the nation's best overall record.
They're basically 1C here, rather than No. 3, but we weren't going to cheat. Maryland beat Penn State, who beat Northwestern, who beat Maryland, so somebody had to be No. 3.
Northwestern has long been the standard, and Maryland didn't beat the two-time reigning champions like Penn State did. While Maryland did beat both teams that beat Northwestern, we're giving the Wildcats the slight edge due to their head-to-head win over the Terps and four non-conference ranked wins.
2. Northwestern Wildcats (16-2, 7-1 Big Ten)
Quarterfinal matchup: First-round bye, plays winner of No. 4 Rutgers vs. No. 5 Indiana in semifinals
All Northwestern needed to do to clinch the Big Ten regular season title outright was extend their regular season conference win streak from 35 to 36 by beating a team that missed the postseason entirely in 2024 and 2025 and hadn't beaten a No. 1 team since 2002.
A formality? Not. All they did was score zero goals in 60 minutes and leave Happy Valley as the only Big Ten team to lose to Penn State by more than one goal all year.
We're not going to doubt Northwestern's ability to bounce back, and it's not hard to imagine that in a few weeks we could be looking back at Penn State's upset win over the Wildcats as the ultimate case of "poking the bear". Given how the 2024 and 2025 postseasons went, you still sort of get the feeling that this team's season really only starts now.
This is a team that won the national championship in 2024 after an upset loss to Michigan in the Big Ten title game, and it's a team that won the national championship in 2025 over the same Princeton team that gave them their only regular season loss not long beforehand.
It certainly didn't help that Northwestern was without co-leading scorer Ilse Tromp against Penn State, but perhaps her absence, coupled with Penn State's unmatched confidence, composure, and toughness, proved that this Wildcats team is far from as unbeatable as we had all been led to believe. Anybody can truly beat anybody when you take a 60-minute sample size, and that is especially true in a conference as deep as the Big Ten.
1. Penn State Nittany Lions (12-5, 6-2 Big Ten)
Quarterfinal matchup: No. 3 seed Penn State vs. No. 6 seed Iowa
Part of this ranking is making up for my own embarrassment of ranking this team No. 7 of 9 before conference play got started. The other 99% is what they were able to do over the month of October (8-1 with four ranked wins).
October comparison
Team | Record | Big Ten record | Ranked wins* | Loss(es)* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Penn State | 8-1 | 6-1 | No. 19 Lafayette, No. 18 Michigan, No. 13 Indiana, No. 1 Northwestern | No. 6 Iowa |
Northwestern | 6-2 | 6-1 | No. 15 Michigan, No. 6 Iowa, No. 11 Indiana, No. 1 Maryland | No. 10 Princeton, No. 14 Penn State |
Maryland | 6-1 | 5-1 | No. 19 Michigan, No. 13 Indiana, No. 9 Iowa | No. 2 Northwestern |
*rankings when the games were contested
Momentum (and maybe some recency bias?) is real, and so is this comparison. Nobody wants to see Penn State right now after they handed Northwestern their first Big Ten regular season loss since 2022. They did it emphatically with a 2-0 victory to wrap up their first regular season under head coach Hannah Prince. Things are clicking for the Nittany Lions right now, and despite having five total losses, they have all the makings of a potential November buzzsaw.
Penn State did end up with a relatively unfavorable Big Ten Tournament draw, since the Iowa team that beat them in October is the No. 6 seed, and Maryland, the only other Big Ten team that beat them this season, looms as the No. 2 seed.
If there were betting odds on the Big Ten Tournament, we know that Penn State wouldn't be the favorites, and it is a little bit concerning that all five of their Big Ten wins before the Northwestern upset came by just one goal.
But winning close games should be praised, not criticized, because it demonstrates the ability to perform at a high level under pressure. And how many times have the Nittany Lions proven the public wrong this year already? Quite frankly, this team's turnaround is precisely the turnaround that fans were expecting would come from the school's football team.
The Iowa loss was Penn State's only shutout loss of the year, and the Maryland game was 1-1 in the fourth quarter before a deluge. The latter happened more than a month and a half ago, and suffice it to say that a lot has changed since then. It's tough to beat a good team twice, and after how well Penn State played against Northwestern, that Iowa loss might well have been more of a timely wakeup call than anything else.
All of Wednesday's Big Ten Tournament action from Columbus, Ohio is set to be shown live on B1G+, while Friday's action and Sunday's Big Ten title decider are set to be shown live on Big Ten Network. Jack Rinaldi and Kara Lentz are set to call each of the three games on BTN.
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