Why Big Ten will evaluate schedules in all sports next spring
By Jon Wilner Bay Area News Group
LAS VEGAS — The Statue of Liberty might not be in UCLA’s future, at least to the extent it was during the Bruins’ inaugural men’s basketball season in the Big Ten.
Commissioner Tony Petitti plans to reassess the conference’s scheduling structure next spring, following the second competition year as an 18-team league with four West Coast schools.
“We’ll go through two years, then sit back and say, ‘What did we learn?’ ” Petitti told the Hotline at the Big Ten football media days event in Las Vegas.
“We have to understand that things change and look at it honestly over time.”
Although football receives the vast majority of attention, the Big Ten schedule has little flexibility because of the TV contracts with Fox, CBS and NBC that will pay the conference approximately $1 billion over seven years. The 9 a.m. kickoffs for West Coast teams playing in the Eastern time zone aren’t going away.
Instead, Petitti’s comments were directed at the Olympic sport schedules, including men’s and women’s basketball.
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The Big Ten did its best to limit the frequency and duration of the cross-country trips for the West Coast teams traveling east and for the other 14 schools traveling west. But there was some public grumbling, particularly from Los Angeles.
At one point, UCLA basketball coach Mick Cronin bemoaned how often the Bruins had seen the Statue of Liberty. (One of UCLA’s trips to the East Coast came courtesy of a nonconference date with North Carolina.) And USC coach Eric Musselman expressed frustration with the way the L.A. schools were disadvantaged for certain home games.
For example, the Trojans visited Rutgers on a Sunday in late February, then came home to face Ohio State the following Wednesday. The Buckeyes had been in L.A. for almost a week from a prior game with UCLA.
“UCLA, Washington, Oregon, USC, we’re in the hole two to four games,” Musselman said. “And it’s going to be that forever for men’s basketball.”
Petitti might not have all the answers, but he’s listening.
“We owe it to everybody to continue evaluating,” he said.
One thing seems clear: Petitti will focus the Big Ten’s regular-season schedules on maximizing postseason bids in the Olympic sports. That is, after all, a vital piece of his controversial proposal for an expanded College Football Playoff.
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Petitti proposed a model based on automatic qualifiers, with the Big Ten and SEC receiving four bids, the Big 12 and the ACC two each, and one for the top-ranked champion from the other conferences. All in all, 13 of the 16 slots would be allocated before the season begins.
The format would allow the Big Ten to add CFP play-in games on championship weekend with, for example, the No. 3 seed facing the No. 6 seed for one of the conference’s automatic bids.
The 4-4-2-2-1 model also would allow the Big Ten to explore a crossover in-season series against the SEC.
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It would help preserve USC’s series against Notre Dame and allow other Big Ten teams to schedule marquee opponents in September without fear that a loss could keep them out of the CFP.
Exactly how the Big Ten would tweak the conference schedule for basketball, baseball or women’s soccer (to name three sports) is not known. Petitti first wants to assess Year 2 of the Big Ten’s grand experiment as the largest major conference in college sports history.
Also, the postseason formats could change in the most prominent Olympic sports: The NCAA is exploring March Madness expansion to either 72 or 76 teams (from the current 68).
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The change could come in time for the 2026 tournament but, more likely, would be implemented in 2027 and beyond.
Petitti’s concern is that the quality depth in the Big Ten — in football, basketball and across the Olympic sports — could work against the conference.
The various selection processes for NCAA championships (and the College Football Playoff) were established before the West Coast schools arrived to create the massive conference.
“When you have a league as deep as we are, access is an issue,” he said. “You can be darn good and still be .500, so how do you qualify for the postseason? How do you schedule? We need to look at that.”
Jon Wilner: jwilner@bayareanewsgroup .com. Jon Wilner has been covering college sports for decades and is an AP top-25 football and basketball voter as well as a Heisman Trophy voter. He was named Beat Writer of the Year in 2013 by the Football Writers Association of America for his coverage of the Pac-12, won first place for feature writing in 2016 in the Associated Press Sports Editors writing contest and is a five-time APSE honoree.
Comments
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Thanks Taft!
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I stupidly assumed when we joined the Big 10 there were still going to be divisions and we were going to play the west coast schools every year, which helped soften the blow. How wrong I was. Even playing more games each year against Nebraska/Iowa/Minnesota would be preferable over Rutgers/Maryland etc. I assume one reason the conference didn't do it is it sticks their three traditional powers in the same division.
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Pretty sure that was the plan and then USC cried.
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It makes no sense they didnt' do that. I assumed they wanted to avoid it since the "West Division" would be like the old one they had where some team that was probably 4th/5th best in the conference played for the championship. Though that could be fixed by making the game the teams with the two best records, not division winners.
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The West Coast teams were all supposed to play each other and they didn't expect USC to be like, "Ughhhh we are the BLUEBLOOD of the old PAC 12 but we do not want to play Washington and Oregon every year."
I'm not sure that anybody complained outside of SC.
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That’s the winner. Get the nine furthest West teams together and each team plays 6 of the 8 in your division with 2 cross over games, one home and one on the road. Take the top two ranked teams in the conference to play for the title. #3 plays #6 and #4 plays #5 and you’ve got your top 4 teams for the playoffs.
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Evaluate bye weeks in football, NGAF about bball.
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I assumed they didn't because it would mean Nebraska/Iowa/Minnesota would be traveling many more miles than Michigan, Penn State and Rutgers
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Pretty sure that the major difference between the big 10 and the old pac12 is that when USC moans and bitches and when the LA schools demand Special scheduling that the league will say NOGAF…
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for football we’re stuck with two choices:
1: Push to get 3 games annually amongst the 4 west coast teams (everyone plays everyone else). Iowa’s boring ass has 3 rivals so there is precedent. Saves on travel
2: Don’t do that so we get more cupcake games against the B1G dregs
The 4 of us playing each other every year gives us losses which the B1G middle would not accrue as much
