Who will win the women’s basketball Big Ten Tournament is anyone’s guess. With a field that is separated by nine wins from top to bottom and a quality win or two to everyone’s record, even the lower teams could pull off a tournament championship.

The two lowest seeds, No. 11 Minnesota and No. 10 Northwestern, have even won or nearly won against the best teams in the conference. Both teams beat No. 3 seed Iowa, Minnesota lost to No. 1 seed OSU by only five and Northwestern lost to No. 2 seed Michigan State by just four.

Basically, every team in the conference has another team in the conference that is like an Achilles’ heel.

No. 6 seed Penn State lost to lowly Minnesota twice, No. 5 seed Purdue lost significantly to MSU twice, No. 4 seed Wisconsin lost to Iowa twice, No. 2 seed MSU hasn’t been able to beat Wisconsin and No. 1 seed OSU can’t stop beating themselves.

That being said, OSU is still the obvious favorite even though they have had trouble against the lower half of the Big Ten. The Buckeyes barely beat Minnesota on Feb. 14 and lost to Indiana by five on Jan. 31, the two lowest teams in the conference.

Yes, OSU does have two first-team All-Big Ten players, the conference Player of the Year and an All-Big Ten honorable mention, but every single team in the conference has at least one player on the All-Big Ten first, second or third team or an honorable mention.

There are just two teams with players found only on the honorable mention team — Minnesota and Michigan — but OSU nearly lost to both of those teams. They won these three games by a combined total of 10 points.

An NCAA Tournament bid goes to the tournament winner, something that not everyone measures success by.

“I don’t know why they have [conference tournaments] and the fact that the automatic bid goes with it is even sillier to me. How you can earn something in three days that a team played for two months to earn is something I don’t quite understand,” coach Jim Foster said. “Because I don’t favor the concept doesn’t mean that I don’t understand the reality of the fact that we have games.”

It may seem OSU has nothing to play for, with a bid likely locked up, but center Jantel Lavender gave one reason that OSU will pull it out.

“I think nobody wants to go in the tournament and just play one game and be done,” Lavender said. “Especially if we play Indiana, I think it’ll be a revenge factor.”

There it is: revenge. That is one thing that could fuel OSU to the tournament title, and it’s not as ridiculous as it may seem.

OSU has lost three games in Big Ten play this season, mostly because of its own play, according to Foster and the players. The Buckeyes lost to Purdue, Indiana and MSU, and they now have a chance to play all three teams on their way to a tournament title.

Indiana and Purdue must win just one game apiece to play OSU, and MSU must win two games to face the Buckeyes, assuming OSU wins its games.

What if the “tournament of revenge” doesn’t happen?

Two years ago, OSU entered the Big Ten tournament as a No. 1 seed, but lost its first game. The Buckeyes went on to lose in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Fast forward to last season when OSU entered the Big Ten Tournament as the No. 1 seed, again, but this time won it all. In the NCAA Tournament, the Buckeyes made it all the way to the Sweet 16 before faltering.

This proves that in the Big Ten, anything can happen.