Big Ten Basketball: The conference will expand its schedule

If you thought adding more conference games was a football concept, you should take a look at Big Ten Basketball.

The Big Ten has decided to raise the number of conference games they play to twenty. They are planning on implementing this change next season, so it will not affect this season. They are the second major conference to make this change, but they will actually enact their change before the ACC begins their own twenty game conference schedule in the 2019-2020 season.

The winner of this move is obviously the Big Ten Conference itself. The addition of two more Big Ten games means two fewer games of lesser value for several of the schools in the conference. There is a higher chance of playing more quality teams. More quality games can help a team’s resume as they try to enter the NCAA Tournament as an at-large bid.

The second winner is the Big Ten Network, who gets more games to show.

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There are some potential losers in the deal, however. Teams at the bottom of the conference now have less of an opportunity to buttress their records with some easy wins. Coaches could end up fired instead of being allowed to hang around because their record suddenly dipped below .500.

A second group of losers could be either other power conference teams or mid-major programs for the same reason. There are now less available dates to schedule Big Ten schools in the non-conference. Some teams hoping for a prestige opponent may miss out, and that could be big for mid-major teams trying to make their reputations or regional schools trying to make revenue. Other power conference teams looking for quality matchups outside their own leagues would be in a similar if less concerning boat.

There is just no way to guess how Big Ten teams will schedule now. Each team was just handed an extra mandatory road date. Will the business interests force them to find more home games in the non-conference? Or will some intrepid coach still go out and look for useful and challenging matchups. It will probably vary from team to team.

An interesting observation is the Big Ten guaranteed three rivalry series to have home-and-homes every season. Indiana-Purdue, Michigan-Michigan State, and Illinois-Northwestern will play twice a year every year. There is nothing odd about this, but it shows the Big Ten is a different world than the ACC where it was impossible for the schedule makers to keep certain rivalry matchups twice a year affairs. The ACC’s own schedule expansion won’t solve that issue either.

Next: Indiana Basketball 2017 BB Preview

In short, the Big Ten is hoping for more money and more NCAA appearances for its membership. Whether it works remains to be seen –on the Big Ten Network, of course.

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