posted on Tuesday, February 12, 2008 2:03 PM by mike.hlas

Can the Big Ten Get Anything Right?

Bad enough that the Big Ten threw together a television network without getting agreements to air it from most of the Big Ten region's major cable companies.

Now it looks like the league won't have a true men's basketball champion. Through Tuesday, Purdue was 11-1 in Big Ten play, Indiana 9-1. They have yet to play each other, and will only do so once this season, at Indiana Feb. 19.

They have an 18-game men's basketball schedule, which means each team will play eight league foes twice and two others just once. Indiana and Purdue, from the same state and rivals since the only the way to get from West Lafayette to Bloomington was via dirt roads, meet just once this season.

That's nuts. And it isn't very fair to the Boilermakers, who have beaten Wisconsin and Michigan State in back-to-back games. Purdue's Matt Painter may be the top threat to Drake's Keno Davis for National Coach of the Year.

Then again, how fair is that Indiana only plays Northwestern - 0-10 in the Big Ten through Tuesday - once?

Going from 16 to 18 games was a good move by the league. Going from 18 to 20, over the raging howls of all 11 league coaches, would be even better.
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Comments

# re: Can the Big Ten Get Anything Right?

Monday, February 18, 2008 10:13 AM by OJ Hawkeye
I agree 100%. Big 10 basketball plays so many meaningless preseason games, often against significantly lesser talented teams. Just start the season a couple weeks earlier and play 20 games.

# re: Can the Big Ten Get Anything Right?

Thursday, February 28, 2008 5:37 PM by BufoMarinas
OK, we all know by now that Mr. Hlas thinks the BTN is to blame for Charter, Comcast, Time Warner, & Mediacom not jumping on the BTN distribution bandwagon. Before I address the Big Ten basketball schedule discussion, I would first like to point out the absurdity of blaming the Big Ten Network instead of the Cable Companies. The Big Ten network would be satisfied if a deal were reached @ $1/customer/month in the 8 state BIG Ten region as long as the signals are distributed as part of a base digital package. That is $12/year/subscriber. If you watch 12 events on the BTN a year. That is a dollar/event. In addition, you get to see some athletes that participate in sports that aren't part of the Dymnamic$ Duo(Basketball & Football). If your a a hard core sports fan, you will probably watch a minimum of 50 BTN sports events(approx once a week), which brings the price/event way down and raises the potentcy of the the subscription. If you aren't within the 8 state Big Ten region, then you would feel about 1 tenth of the $1 monthly cost the IN-Region subscibers will pay. That is 10 cents a month Mr. Hlas.

The Cable operators don't like this deal. They have refused to enter into the agreement under the guise they don't want subscribers to have to pay for channels they won't watch.
What a load of BS. I will tell you why the major cable operators haven't entered into this agreement, its because they will make more on the deal if they enter into the agreement under their conditions, not the BTN's. The ironic thing is, that without competition in the form of the staellite providers, the Cable Operators would probably get there way because they would be the only game in town(no pun intended). It is also ironic that when the games were on VS, I had to add the FSN just to see those games(which I did because I am a real hawk fan, not a whiny baby).

Now for you whiners complaining about the the Big Ten Basketball schedule. We all want to apologize for the schedules assymetric form. We also want to apologize for those pre conference games. We realize we have made huge errors in creating the schedule where all games must occur between two stated dates, involving 11 major universities(as well as the non conference teams that are gracious enough to play up and give our teams a chance to work out the early kinks). We should have considered the fact that Mr. Hlas wants each Big Ten team to play each team twice. Don't worry about the players, don't worry about the scheduling nightmares, don't worry about weather implications, don't worry mid terms and finals. Just schedule the darn games so Mr. Hlas experiences the euphoria of symmetry.

Or maybe we could just have a tournament at the end of the season, and whomever wins, regardless of position, rank, sports writer belief, or the phase of the moon, will be the Big Ten Champion. More importantly, they will all share equally in the benefits of the entire season from a monetary perspective.

Regardless of whether your a player or a fan. Let me close in saying, whiners have no place in any collegiate sport. My advice to Mr. Hlas, become a fan. . . not a critic.

Sincerely,
Bufo