[media-credit name=’YANA PASKOVA/Herald photo’ align=’alignright’ width=’336′][/media-credit]While the men's Big Ten basketball schedule still has a week or so left in the regular season, the action of the Big Ten tournament is about to begin on the women's side of the ball.

The tournament tips off Thursday afternoon at the Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Ind., with the first three games — No. 8 Penn State versus No. 9 Wisconsin at 2 p.m., followed by No. 7 Illinois against No. 10 Northwestern and No. 6 Indiana versus No. 11 Michigan.

While the top-seeded Ohio State Buckeyes are the clear favorites, head coaches across the conference feel as though any team is capable of winning it all to receive the automatic bid for the NCAA tournament.

"I would say [Ohio State is the favorite]," Wisconsin head coach Lisa Stone said. "I mean, going in, obviously their seed as well as (the fact) they just won 16 straight, if I'm not mistaken. The paper proves it, and they've got a great player in Jessica Davenport."

The Buckeyes may be beatable, but Penn State head coach Rene Portland believes a team would have to play a near-perfect game to knock them off.

"A team would have to be very, very prepared (to beat Ohio State)," Portland said. "A team would have to really stick to their game plan and understand if there are any weaknesses, you'd have to go after those weaknesses, but there aren't many.

"It's a great defense," Portland continued. "They pass the ball extremely well, and with the development of their 3-point shot, they've really opened up the inside and even if they didn't have the 3-point shot, the inside would be very difficult to play; now it has just become more difficult."

Although Ohio State may be the favorite, No. 3 seeded Michigan State can't be overlooked.

As last year's conference tournament winner, the Spartans made a NCAA tournament run all the way to the championship game before losing to the eventual champ in Baylor.

However, this season has been a struggle for head coach Joanne P. McCallie to repeat her team's success of a year ago.

"It's exciting, but it's definitely challenging," McCallie said. "You have no idea what it's like to make that kind of run and how it works the year after. It's just remarkable the challenges that occur, and the best thing I can say about it is it gives me more respect for the teams that have done it over and over again."

The tournament will be especially crucial for some teams in regards to NCAA tournament hopes, as some are currently on the bubble, namely the No. 5 and No. 6 seeds — Iowa and Indiana.

"I think we need to win a couple games [in the Big Ten tournament to get in the NCAA tournament]," Indiana head coach Sharon Versyp said. "In these last two games, Iowa and us — they were in, we were out, we were in the bubble, they were out, and right now they look like they're in, but whatever can happen in the tournament, it's really wide open for a lot of different people."

For Wisconsin, the matchup against Penn State will be rather beneficial, considering it just recently defeated the Lady Lions 66-56 at Kohl Center two weeks ago, and head coach Lisa Stone hopes her team can stay on its little streak it had in the last stretch of the regular season, winning two of its last three games.

"It'll be two weeks ago we beat Penn State here in a great team effort, again, remembering what has gotten us to be successful right now," Stone said. "It's balanced scoring, identification of roles, composure and the breakthrough of finding ways to win."

A pair of accolades: Two of Wisconsin's own were honored with Big Ten postseason honors — Jolene Anderson being named to the second team All-Big Ten by both the coaches and the media and Janese Banks named to the media's All-Big Ten honorable mention as well as being the team's Sportsmanship Award honoree.

"Jolene Anderson is a young woman who has put up some big numbers for two years now, and to be honored in such a very talented conference on the second team is a credit to her and her teammates for finding her," Stone said. "And I don't think we've seen the best of her yet."

"With Janese Banks having missed six Big Ten games and still to be honored is a credit to her," Stone said. "The Sportsmanship is with each school and certainly she epitomizes what a balanced student-athlete is at Wisconsin."