B1G basketball teams prepare to play each other less, not more

ROSEMONT, Ill. - Four years ago, Big Ten men's basketball teams played 80 percent of their league opponents twice. Beginning this season, that number plummets to 39 percent.

With an 18-game league slate and 11 squads through 2011, Big Ten teams played eight schools twice and two schools once. With the league expanding three times since 2011 (Nebraska 2011-12; Maryland and Rutgers this year), the schools will play five schools twice and eight schools just once. The old-school round-robin circuit in Big Ten play is nothing more than history.

'It isn't your dad's Big Ten anymore,” Purdue Coach Matt Painter said. 'It's different. It doesn't mean it's wrong.”

Schools still play one another annually, but they're slated to meet twice about every three years. That affects longtime rivalries like Michigan-Michigan State, Indiana-Purdue and Minnesota-Iowa, in which programs tended to hold serve on their home courts.

It also impacts burgeoning series. Nebraska has played three seasons in the league and its fans identify potential rivalries with border foe Iowa, plus regional teams Minnesota and Wisconsin. Last year, Nebraska played all three teams just once, including Iowa in the league opener and Wisconsin in the finale.

'I wish we'd play our border schools more,” Nebraska Coach Tim Miles said. 'Last year we played Iowa the first game of the year, and then I honestly don't know that I watched them again. And if I recall right, I think they were on the other side of the bracket in the Big Ten Tournament, so I don't even think I watched much there, either. I didn't even see Franny's (McCaffery) team play very much after they beat us.”

Newcomers Maryland and Rutgers also face similar issues. Maryland in particular, left rivalries with North Carolina, Duke and Virginia to join the Big Ten.

'Obviously right now we probably don't have a rival,” Maryland Coach Mark Turgeon said. 'But five years from now we might not be their first rival, but we'll have a rival in this league, and there will be big games for us in this league and ones that our fans get excited about.”

The concept of permanent rivalries as a double-play has generated little discussion among coaches and administrators. This year, the league tried to sync up as many regional rivalries for double-plays in the first batch of scheduling. Iowa, for instance, plays border foes Nebraska, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Northwestern home-and-home this year. Indiana-Purdue and Michigan-Michigan also will play twice this year. But that changes every year.

Most coaches are concerned with competitive disadvantage than rivalries. In years past, scheduling might give one school a slight edge on Big Ten Tournament seeding. Now, the unbalanced scheduling could have a major effect on the Big Ten regular-season title and potentially an NCAA tournament bid.

'What's a little harder for the coaches ... if you don't play everybody and you get one of those breaks with the top four teams you play once and the bottom four teams you play twice, there's going to be a difference in your win-loss record, especially in basketball where home and away seems to have such an impact,” Michigan State Coach Tom Izzo said, 'I mean, football it does, but basketball, it's off the charts.”

Wisconsin Coach Bo Ryan usually advocates for more league games to create a true regular-season champion. While 26 games might be unrealistic, he pushed for 20.

'Scheduling is so hard nowadays,” Ryan said. 'I've said this before, so I'm not going to beat a drum here about scheduling, but to play the RPI teams and to play where their RPIs will be at the time, to play 20 games in our league, I think it would be great for the league if we could squeeze it in, if we could do it. There's a lot of other factors. It's not like (senior associate commissioner) Mark Rudner sits up at night thinking, ‘Oh, good, let's see if we can't get 20 or 22 league games scheduled in here.' I don't think he's looking at that. I think there's been some test runs at looking at things.”

But getting to 20 games likely pushes the schedule into December, something Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany said creates even more challenges. The league has its annual showdown with the ACC, created a new series with the new-look Big East and most teams play several games against high-level competition.

'If our coaches said to us, we'd like to have 20, we would have it,” Delany said. 'Eighteen is not an expansion so as a percentage, we're reducing the number of games that we play against each other. If we continue to have this discussion and dialogue it would probably mean 20 would have to move back into December.

'I wouldn't be opposed to 20, but I think we'll just see how this works out with the five (double-plays) and the eight (single-plays).”

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