The Big Ten has only had five commissioners since 1922. That’s an amazing number and a testament to the loyalty shown by these five individuals. One of those elite is none other than Jim Delaney, who has captained the conference for almost 20 years. He has undergone several changes in several different arenas, and one of his chief responsibilities at the current time is amongst other commissioners on the Bowl Championship Series “team”. Read the rest of this entry »

The Big 10 didn’t exactly have a banner year in terms of the NCAA tournament, although it was better than what many had predicted. But with 30 picks in the NBA draft for the first round, the conference posted 3 players that were taken, with Eric Gordon being the number 7 pick for the Los Angeles Clippers, Kosta Koufos taken 23rd by the Utah Jazz, and D.J. White being taken 29th by the Detroit Pistons. Read the rest of this entry »

Although it’s not as many as Big Ten fans would like to hear….

Sports Illustrated names a list of what they call the “Fortunate 50″, which is a spin of the business world’s “Fortune 500″, but this is just for athletes. This takes into account not only the salaries that the players make, but also takes into consideration their endorsements. So, naturally, it is no surprise that Tiger Woods is the leader with about a bajillion dollars he makes from Golf and Nike, amongst others. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll admit it, I have been like a lot of people in my anger at both sides of this epic battle of the Big Ten Network and Comcast, as it seems it always comes down to money. Heck, I’m not real happy with Comcast in the least, they came in as the big bully and took over Insight as my “everything” provider, and has promptly raised rates as well as concerns with their network capabilities, etc. But I digress.

Since March, subscribers and Big 10 fans have eagerly been awaiting the final ok to a proposed agreement with the BTN and the cable network, but it has yet to be disseminated. In fact, it’s making me a bit nervous that there are more stipulations that I will not be hip to, but as long as at least I have an option to put the BTN on my list, I am simply ecstatic for that availability. The fact is with the biggies Michigan and Ohio State hogging much of the primetime games on the football schedule, when you want to watch another team, the choices are slim pickings most of the time.

Get it done, boys. You can only hurt yourself the longer this goes on, for pete’s sake.

Jeremiah Rivers obviously has the talent, he obviously has the genes (his father is Doc Rivers, former NBA great and now-Boston Celtics coach), but he wasn’t happy. Playing at Georgetown, the depth was choking to Rivers, who as a 6-4 guard, got to play in all 34 games–but not as much as he would have liked to.

Stating that he didn’t feel that Georgetown utilized him as he thought they would, Rivers announced that he is transferring to Indiana under new coach Tom Crean. Although he won’t be able to play this year, he will still have two years of eligibility and will give the Hoosiers a much-needed guard presence that they are strikingly lacking after Eric Gordon and other player’s departures. Read the rest of this entry »

Now that’s an impressive number. You can say what you want about the overall performance of certain conferences like the Big 12, Big East, SEC, and what not, but you can never say that Big Ten fans take a backseat to any one–as it was recently announced that the Big Ten won the nation’s conference attendance title for the 32nd straight year.

By school, the Big Ten paced five universities among the country’s top 25 in average attendance, with two programs among the top 10. No other conference placed more than four teams among the top 25. Wisconsin led the Big Ten contingent, ranking seventh nationally with an average of 17,190 fans per game. Indiana rated No. 9 with 16,876 patrons per outing. Other conference programs among the top 25 included No. 11 Illinois (16,618), No. 12 Ohio State (16,587) and No. 17 Michigan State (14,759).

Way to go fans! You certainly prove your loyalty year in and year out. (No matter how bad your teams can be at times–yes, I am looking at you, Illinois…:)

The field for the 2008 Old Spice Classic has been released, and Michigan State is included in the Thanksgiving affair in which Tom Izzo’s team will try to go the entire weekend undefeated and win the crown. The problem is that this field resembles a shortened NCAA bracket with all of the talent that will be playing game in and game out. Read the rest of this entry »

Ahhh, the ACC-Big Ten Challenge. Such history.

Such a ridiculous pairing of two conferences.

Sorry guys, but this is heads and above my least favorite thing that the Big 10 does. Not because I feel like they shouldn’t play against tough teams, but the fact that this is a “match up” of two conferences battling against each other, there’s never much to the overall scheme of things–the ACC usually kicks the crap out of the Big 10, much in part because normally the Big 10 has 1-3 very good teams, while the ACC generally has a deeper conference that can compete from top to bottom, which makes all the difference in the world when you consider the cavernous difference from top to bottom in Big 10 basketball.

So, enough of my soapboxing, here are the games:

Monday, Dec. 1: Wisconsin at Virginia Tech

Wednesday, Dec. 3: North Carolina vs. Michigan State (from Ford Field), Indiana at Wake Forest, Michigan at Maryland, Florida State at Northwestern, Penn State at Georgia Tech 

Actually, I am not reaaaaaaally going to complain too much about these games, even though the Penn State-Georgia Tech and the Illinois-Clemson games are mismatches overall. But the Duke-Purdue and MSU-North Carolina matchups will be awesome.

Not that it was really any surprise. I talked about this months ago (as did about every blogger who discussed Indiana basketball), and it was just the icing on the cake. Eric Gordon is going to the NBA.  Even though he was getting a class coach in Tom Crean and perhaps could better himself in the draft, Gordon is not taking the risk of injury or perhaps falling off in his game and making the bolt out of the Big Ten.

I’m outta here!! 

I like Gordon as a player and as someone who was able to take the reins of his team as a freshman. Yes, D.J. White was Big 10 player of the year, but it was by no way his team–Gordon had every bit to do with the success that Indiana maintained until Kelvin Sampson went over his minutes on his cell phone and had to leave.

But is he really ready? It was apparent that after Sampson left that Gordon was trying way too hard, and his shooting percentage was pathetic near the end of the season. He looked frustrated and out of place in the NCAA tournament, and if he gets into some pretty nasty environments in the NBA, will he survive? I mean, I can see Michael Beasley and O.J. Mayo being great in the NBA now–but I believe that’s very much due to the maturity of their game–I just don’t see that with Gordon–if he was good enough to make it now, I think that despite Sampson being gone, he would have played on and continued to dominate the level that you have to be competent at before you go against the Chris Pauls and Deron Williams’ of the world. He is a good player, but his depth as to what he can do against the athletes must improve or else he could go the way of Damon Bailey.

But–I could be wrong–but I guess I just look at it that you can’t teach size, and guys that are slick forwards/either 3 or 4–and centers–a la Greg Oden–should be the ones that go to the NBA early if they can show the ability in that nominal first year in college. However,  guards are a totally different situation–the mentality and what not is so different than anything else. I just don’t see Gordon competing at the level he needs to now to move on.

I apologize for the delay in posting–I’ve been fighting some ickiness in the change of seasons, but you don’t want to hear about that. If you do, email me and I’ll give you the gory details.

So Indiana has a new coach–Tom Crean. The man who brought Marquette back to national prominence is now taking his success in the Midwest to Indiana, and brings with him a great reputation, and for Indiana, they certainly need that reputation. The University already had taken so much flak when they originally hired Kelvin Sampson, and that did not work out so well, now did it? Read the rest of this entry »