Northwestern 

So if both teams finish with identical conference records, the tournament would be held in Evanston. Go spartans this weekend.

It should go to better overall record.

A coin toss???? A COIN TOSS?????
 
you have got to be kidding me.
 
This is even more ridiculous than the "let's vote for who goes to the Rose Bowl" that the ADs used to do.
 
This is the last straw IMO. Time for Michigan to leave the "little ten" behind and go independent. It is clear that the other ten schools are jealous of Michigan's across the board academic and athletic excellence and will do anything to cheat Michigan.
 
If Northwestern beats MSU, there should be an asterisk next to their name in the standings for this coin toss crap. They do not deserve to host the tournament, Michigan does. They know it and everyone knows it. Michigan did MUCH better in non conference.

ORIGINAL: Jerrybear

A coin toss???? A COIN TOSS?????

you have got to be kidding me.

This is even more ridiculous than the "let's vote for who goes to the Rose Bowl" that the ADs used to do.

This is the last straw IMO. Time for Michigan to leave the "little ten" behind and go independent. It is clear that the other ten schools are jealous of Michigan's across the board academic and athletic excellence and will do anything to cheat Michigan.

If Northwestern beats MSU, there should be an asterisk next to their name in the standings for this coin toss crap. They do not deserve to host the tournament, Michigan does. They know it and everyone knows it. Michigan did MUCH better in non conference.

Whoa there Jerry. I think a coin flip is ridiculous, but the Big Ten needs us and we need the Big Ten. I agree - it should go to better overall record, but these things happen.

The Little Ten needs Michigan FAR MORE than Michigan needs the other ten inferior schools that make up the conference.
 
Without Michigan, the Little Ten is NOTHING.
 
No more "conference loyalty" for me, and i urge all other Michigan fans to do the same. Root AGAINST all the other ten schools in every sport. That is what i have been doing in women's basketball for a while now and i now extend that to all other sports.

The people who were present at the meeting where they decided a coin flip should be the first resort in the case of a conference tie should be ashamed of themselves.  I'm picturing a group of guys wanting to go to the hotel or local bar instead of spending some effort doing their jobs.  I mean, that should be AT LEAST third down the list of tiebreakers. 

ORIGINAL: Jerrybear

The Little Ten needs Michigan FAR MORE than Michigan needs the other ten inferior schools that make up the conference.

Without Michigan, the Little Ten is NOTHING.

No more "conference loyalty" for me, and i urge all other Michigan fans to do the same. Root AGAINST all the other ten schools in every sport. That is what i have been doing in women's basketball for a while now and i now extend that to all other sports.

Since when is Northwestern inferior? Last time I checked we just split a DH with them in Ann Arbor. It's ridiculous, but we had our chance to host. If we would have swept NU at home, no coin flip would have been needed.

Since when is Northwestern inferior? Last time I checked we just split a DH with them in Ann Arbor. It's ridiculous, but we had our chance to host. If we would have swept NU at home, no coin flip would have been needed.

 
Well, the problem is that Northwestern didn't do anything to get it, either.  They didn't sweep Michigan.  And they're ranked lower for a reason.  I understand Northwestern is a great team and in the mix of possible World Series contenders, but this is a joke.

ORIGINAL: buckeyehater22

ORIGINAL: Jerrybear

The Little Ten needs Michigan FAR MORE than Michigan needs the other ten inferior schools that make up the conference.

Without Michigan, the Little Ten is NOTHING.

No more "conference loyalty" for me, and i urge all other Michigan fans to do the same. Root AGAINST all the other ten schools in every sport. That is what i have been doing in women's basketball for a while now and i now extend that to all other sports.

Since when is Northwestern inferior? Last time I checked we just split a DH with them in Ann Arbor. It's ridiculous, but we had our chance to host. If we would have swept NU at home, no coin flip would have been needed.

 
Michigan is better academically than Northwestern.
 
Michigan is better overall in athletics than Northwestern.
 
Michigan softball has a better overall record than N'western this season.
 
Michigan is still the only team from the conference to ever win a national championship in softball.
 
This is merely another example of the jealous little sisters and brothers in the conference finding ways to cheat Michigan. just like the BS Rose Bowl votes back in the 70s.
 
They will NEVER be as good overall as Michigan, so they play these silly little games to try and get back at Michigan for being so great.
 
But it will not work. Michigan will always be The Leaders and Best, and the other ten will always be lagging behind.

Vince, stop whining. How does a coin flip cheat Michigan? The conference rules were set long before the tie came about. Do you think they were somehow devised to cheat a single team? Not. 
 
Michigan hosted Northwestern for a double header. U-M players knew the stakes that were on the line. They had the homefield advantage and didn't use it. As Hutch said, they played tight. It's too bad they don't get to host the last Big Ten Tournament because of it. You could say Northwestern is actually the better Big Ten team this year because both of their B10 losses where on the road when Michigan's were at home.
 
All Michigan can do now is win it to be the last name stamped on the trophy. The tournament will not be held again.
 
 

ORIGINAL: Jerrybear

Michigan is better academically than Northwestern.

 
Don't tell U.S. News and World Report--they would disagree with you.

It's great to be a Michigan Wolverine!

Who has the better overall record??? MICHIGAN
 
Who has won a national championship??? MICHIGAN
 
So N'western got lucky and managed to win one of two against Michigan??? SO WHAT! Michigan has the better credentials and should host the tournament.
 
My point is that the other ten athletic departments outvote Michigan and set up these stupid rules knowing that they will benefit them in a situation like this where they do NOT have better credentials than Michigan. They know that most of the time they will not have a better record than Michigan so they better have rules that make what Michigan EARNED on the field irrelevant.
 
As for US Snooze and World Propaganda, who cares what they think??? All private universities (Harvard, Yale, Stanford, N'western, etc) are HORRIBLY overrated academically. The best public universities are at LEAST as good as them and in the case of Michigan, better.

I don't disagree that the overall record is a logical tie-breaker and therefore Michigan should maybe be hosting the tournament.  I mainly just don't think it's that big of a deal--I'd love a Big Ten Tournament Championship but we'll be in the playoffs and well-situated no matter what happens and that's what's really important (though there's no denying that winning the BT tournament would be helpful in getting a higher seed).  If you're deciding the one team who gets the auto-bid into the NCAA tournament or something like that then you should make efforts to decide it less randomly; if you both do so well that you end the season by losing only two Big Ten games and all that is up for grabs is hosting the Big Ten tournament, I don't really have a problem that it's random.

The fact that we won a national championship is irrelevant in who should host this year's Big Ten tournament--this is a different team and a different year.  If you want to use history, you could follow the football rules that use history and choose the team in the tie that has not hosted the tournament in the longest time, which would go to Northwestern.

Lastly, I have a hard time believing that Michigan was fighting for overall record as a tie-breaker and everybody got together to screw us.  For one, I don't think anyone spent that much time coming up with the tie-break rules.  For another if they happened to make the rules this year then, in the ESPN.com/USA softball preseason poll, Northwestern was ranked higher, so they probably would have been seen as more likely to benefit from overall record being a tie-breaker.  In fact, at the beginning of the season, I think most people would have said Northwestern was getting screwed in Michigan's favor since anyone would have expected the two of us to be by far the best in the Big Ten and they had to play both games against us in Ann Arbor.

Mainly, yeah, Michigan is by most accounts a better team this year, so probably more deserving of hosting the tournament--but it's not that big of a deal and I'm certainly doubtful of any conspiracy theory around it.

It's great to be a Michigan Wolverine!

Jerrybear, you need to chill.  Your academic arguments have nothing to do with the admittedly-sucky tie break arrangement that Michigan already agreed to.  The idea is to win the title outright so that this situation is avoided in the first place.
 
Michigan should leave the Big Ten over a coin-flip?   Really?

Hm, yeah, I would concede pretty quickly that Northwestern is tops academically.  They only suffer in comparison to Michigan in areas related to size (not as much research, awards, etc. because of fewer faculty and depts.).  I've worked at both universities, and there's far less partying/extra-curricular activities going on on that campus, too.  Most excellent as UM is, of course.    Their athletes are much more likely to be there to get degrees, as well.  (Sorry, guys.)
 
I'm still going to miss attending the tournament.  I guess we won't have to worry about this happening again!  (Last year for Big Ten Tourney.)

Hutch comments on the BTN:
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1138309656/bclid1112164232/bctid1539385007