Big Ten basketball is a mess

[coonhounds]

2018 was the year it was early

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[IU Scott]

6 minutes ago, Hardwood83 said:

Isn't part of the problem having to accommodate 20 conference games, a direct of adding Rutgers and Maryland? 

I don't think it is a coincidence that the problems started when the big ten started to expand.  I am old school and which the big ten had 10 teams because you had 18 conference games and played everyone twice.

[Uspshoosier]

5 minutes ago, coonhounds said:

Not sure? Just know they did it a week early recently with rutgers and Maryland involved. Have to ask the decision makers to find out. I bet someone could find a article of why it didn't stick

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They wanted the conference tourney in the New York market at MSG.     Only way they could get it was doing it a week early because Big East has MSG for the week that the B1G would want.     B1G also played in the DC market.   If I’m remembering right they switch between Chicago and Indy and every 4th and 5th year move it to a different market to expand its audience 

[IUFAN1976]

23 hours ago, Magnanimous said:

Nine teams in the tournament and the conference will be lucky to have two teams get through to the second weekend. Plenty of competitive teams, but still only one national title in the last 31 years. Another year, the same story.

So what can be done about this? IU has had its own issues the last 20 years, but it is not just an “us” problem. Should we start the BTT a day earlier and end on Saturday? Should the conference officiating change to allow for a more finesse style of play that translates to the NCAAT? We’re getting plenty of talent and usually fielding several contending teams a year, but come tournament time it’s egg after egg. What else is there to it?

I do think the officiating needs to change.  I say reduce the amount of teams too.  Lastly, the committee didn’t put much stalk into the conference tournaments.  The conference tournaments only impacted a very small amount of teams getting in the tournament, including IU, but didn’t seem to change the seeding.  I say eliminate the conference tournament.  

[IUFAN1976]

23 hours ago, lillurk said:

Yep, and rewarding talent/skill leads to a better television product, which makes the league more money, too. Selfishly it also benefits the half of the conference that can recruit top talent, which would help IU (though not exclusively IU, of course). A virtuous cycle.

But would and could go against teams like Turdue, Illinois and Wisconsin.

[IUFAN1976]

23 hours ago, Josh said:

Don't Big Ten officials work in the tournament?  I have a hard time believing it's officiating.  I tend to agree with USPS on the talent disparity

But the style of play leads to a lack of talent.  If top players know they have a real shot at getting to the NBA, why would they want to play in such a rugged conference as the B10 and take a chance on getting injured 

[RaceToTheTop]

At the end of the day, the Big Ten is going to have 9 or more wins in the tournament.  Assuming Purdue just shows up against St.Peter’s, thd conference will have double digit wins in the tourney this year.  There will not be any change sparked by that.

[IUFAN1976]

14 hours ago, coonhounds said:

Man until purdue is gone I wouldn't be talking about how bad the big is. They probably win this year and screw everything up

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Let’s hope not!!

[str8baller]

I think everyone kind of covered it. But I’ll add: 

1) Recruiting- some of it is structural. The population migration west and south means we have more programs competing over less people as most people, not on the east coast, have moved south and west. The state of Florida has more basketball and football titles this century than the entire B1G combined (unless you’re counting Maryland which I don’t). The state of Florida has three major universities competing for talent in their state, same as Indiana. Now go look at a graph of population growth over the last 50 yrs between the two states.  
 

2) Recruiting - part 2. As others have said, some of it is Indiana being down. Other top basketball programs like MSU, Michigan and Ohio State haven’t taken up the mantle quite enough in our absence. There are several title game losses among that group though. A lot of it is IU. If Kansas were bad the last 25yrs, the Big 12 would be similar. 
 

3) Officiating. I actually resisted this one for quite a while and don’t think it is as big regarding recruiting as the two points above. But watching guys like Edey (who adjusted fairly well, imo), Cockburn and Williams play this weekend  trying not to draw a charge every time down the floor was pretty funny after watching them just bully their way through the B1G season. We do a disservice to our teams, who often seem to do ok in pre-conf play, by letting them bang on each other for 3 straight months. We play longer and faster teams in the tourney and have nothing to fall back on when we can’t physically punish them.  
 

Also, I guess it’s ironic that we added Nebraska, PSU and Maryland and they both went to crap in football and basketball, respectively. Rutgers adds nothing in this regard. 

[HoosierAloha]

1 hour ago, str8baller said:

I think everyone kind of covered it. But I’ll add: 

1) Recruiting- some of it is structural. The population migration west and south means we have more programs competing over less people as most people, not on the east coast, have moved south and west. The state of Florida has more basketball and football titles this century than the entire B1G combined (unless you’re counting Maryland which I don’t). The state of Florida has three major universities competing for talent in their state, same as Indiana. Now go look at a graph of population growth over the last 50 yrs between the two states.  
 

2) Recruiting - part 2. As others have said, some of it is Indiana being down. Other top basketball programs like MSU, Michigan and Ohio State haven’t taken up the mantle quite enough in our absence. There are several title game losses among that group though. A lot of it is IU. If Kansas were bad the last 25yrs, the Big 12 would be similar. 
 

3) Officiating. I actually resisted this one for quite a while and don’t think it is as big regarding recruiting as the two points above. But watching guys like Edey (who adjusted fairly well, imo), Cockburn and Williams play this weekend  trying not to draw a charge every time down the floor was pretty funny after watching them just bully their way through the B1G season. We do a disservice to our teams, who often seem to do ok in pre-conf play, by letting them bang on each other for 3 straight months. We play longer and faster teams in the tourney and have nothing to fall back on when we can’t physically punish them.  
 

Also, I guess it’s ironic that we added Nebraska, PSU and Maryland and they both went to crap in football and basketball, respectively. Rutgers adds nothing in this regard. 

There was an article on your point #1 many years ago that predicted this many years ago. I believe it was a Sports Illustrated article but still can't find it.

[RaceToTheTop]

3 hours ago, Uspshoosier said:

They wanted the conference tourney in the New York market at MSG.     Only way they could get it was doing it a week early because Big East has MSG for the week that the B1G would want.     B1G also played in the DC market.   If I’m remembering right they switch between Chicago and Indy and every 4th and 5th year move it to a different market to expand its audience 

Here's the stupid thing:  part of the reason that the tournament has a rotation that puts it in New York and D.C. on occasion was because of promises that were made to.....Rutgers and Maryland to get them in the conference.  Two teams that if they just stopped playing sports, the Big Ten wouldn't notice.

[go iu bb]

https://www.si.com/college/2022/03/21/big-ten-march-madness-purdue-wisconsin-iowa-michigan

[HoosierHoops1]

11 minutes ago, go iu bb said:

https://www.si.com/college/2022/03/21/big-ten-march-madness-purdue-wisconsin-iowa-michigan

By pure #'s only supposed to have 2 remaining. If neither get to elite 8, that's where the issue will first arise.

[TheWatShot]

Not sure if this is an indictment of the league or not, but when I looked through the Sweet 16 previews today, I noticed Purdue and Michigan are the only teams with losing records against the spread. 

[RaceToTheTop]

1 hour ago, HoosierHoops1 said:

By pure #'s only supposed to have 2 remaining. If neither get to elite 8, that's where the issue will first arise.

Considering that the Big Ten didn't have any one or two seeds, none would have been favored to get to the elite eight.

The fact is that the Big Ten sent the most teams of any conference to the tournament and currently (I believe) have produced the most tournament wins this season.  I simply don't see Purdue losing to St. Peter's, so the conference is going to win double digits games in the tournament.  The issue that the fans see isn't what the conference sees when at the end of the day the conference will likely have played in 19 or more NCAA tournament games.

[Loaded Chicken Sandwich]

Well if you look at the Top 30(247composite)

SEC- 8

Big 12- 6

ACC- 5

Pac12- 5

Undecided- 3

Big Ten- 1

Big East- 1

AAC- 1

[Loaded Chicken Sandwich]

Extending on that... this is what the Big Ten has.

Top 10- 0

Top 20- 0

Top 30- 1

Top 40- 3

Top 50- 5

Top 75- 13

Top 100- 15

[str8baller]

2 hours ago, brumdog45 said:

Considering that the Big Ten didn't have any one or two seeds, none would have been favored to get to the elite eight.

The fact is that the Big Ten sent the most teams of any conference to the tournament and currently (I believe) have produced the most tournament wins this season.  I simply don't see Purdue losing to St. Peter's, so the conference is going to win double digits games in the tournament.  The issue that the fans see isn't what the conference sees when at the end of the day the conference will likely have played in 19 or more NCAA tournament games.

And almost zero chance to win a title once again. I think that the real issue is that people don’t care so much that Minnesota is, on average, better than Wake Forest. They see that in the SEC Florida and UK have won multiple titles the last couple decades. UnC, Duke and Virginia from the ACC have titles. Uconn, Syracuse, and Villanova in the BE. The B1G have none until you get to MSUs over two decades ago.  
 

No one but us cares that IU won a play-in game. And I only care in a vacuum relative to our recent putrid performance. 

[Loaded Chicken Sandwich]

33 minutes ago, str8baller said:

And almost zero chance to win a title once again. I think that the real issue is that people don’t care so much that Minnesota is, on average, better than Wake Forest. They see that in the SEC Florida and UK have won multiple titles the last couple decades. UnC, Duke and Virginia from the ACC have titles. Uconn, Syracuse, and Villanova in the BE. The B1G have none until you get to MSUs over two decades ago.  
 

No one but us cares that IU won a play-in game. And I only care in a vacuum relative to our recent putrid performance. 

One thing too many Big Ten fans care about is how good the bottom of the conference is. It's really completely useless. What's changed for the Big Ten with the bottom getting any better? Nothing. If the Bottom 4 or 5 of the conference were essentially SWAC teams, wouldn't change anything. Big Ten needs it's top teams to be great. Period. Big East is Villanova now after the top part of the conference left in 2013. They've had a couple other teams pop up here and there. But Georgetown has been trash. DePaul, trash. Butler this season, trash. But Villanova has been really good. Providence has been really good. That's all that matters. Big Ten has been in a decline for about a decade now, though the conference is overrated basically every season. I expect to continue going down after this season as well. Indiana just has to take advantage of it for once. 

[WayneFleekHoosier]

And almost zero chance to win a title once again. I think that the real issue is that people don’t care so much that Minnesota is, on average, better than Wake Forest. They see that in the SEC Florida and UK have won multiple titles the last couple decades. UnC, Duke and Virginia from the ACC have titles. Uconn, Syracuse, and Villanova in the BE. The B1G have none until you get to MSUs over two decades ago.  
 
No one but us cares that IU won a play-in game. And I only care in a vacuum relative to our recent putrid performance. 

Purdue has a legit shot this season. Will they do it? Probably not, but they are coached and talented enough to have a legitimate shot. But, yeah, the B1G doesn’t recruit well enough to have truly top teams year in and year out. Older talent sometimes works but even then, the B1G doesn’t have top end older talent either. Solid enough coaches, I believe, but this Purdue team had caught my eye early and I’m not surprised they are the March contenders this season.

I think the whole play style debate has a factor as well but smaller than the recruiting inadequacies.


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