This year’s Big Ten basketball schedule will play out like reruns of Seinfeld — on every night, on a variety of channels.
Yes, seven nights a week, even Fridays. That’s in addition to every team playing two league games apiece in the first week of December. Also, there’s now a week off between the Big Ten Tournament and the NCAA Tournament.
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As the philosopher Costanza would say: “Sweet fancy Moses.”
The Big Ten released its newly finalized 2017-18 conference basketball schedule on Wednesday. It looks nothing like schedules of the past. The league’s decision to move the 2018 Big Ten Tournament to New York City, thus sliding it back a week toFeb. 28-March 2, turned the regular-season schedule into an ill-fitting shoe. Somehow, the conference had to cram it in.
What was released on Wednesday is the best they could do.
“We went from a 10-week season to a nine-week season and we moved some games into December to alleviate some of the compression, but there’s still compression and there always will be when you’re taking 112 games and trying to fit them into a 55-day period, which we’ve done,”Big Ten senior associate commissioner Mark Rudner told BTN. “We’re at a point where we think this schedule is workable, given the constraints we have in facilities and compliance with our scheduling principles, and also with our new media partners.”
First things first: Michigan and Michigan State’s lone meeting will be onSat. Jan. 13, in East Lansing. (Yes, they play only once, here’s more on that.) The two split their regular-season matchups a year ago. This season will be winner takes all.
As for those early December dips into league play, neither MSU nor U-M landed marquee games against those considered conference contenders.
Michigan State, which could very well be the No. 1 team in the country after a few weeks of non-conference play, will host Nebraska on Sunday, Dec. 3, and travel to Rutgers on Tuesday, Dec. 5.
Michigan will host Indiana on Saturday, Dec. 2, and play at Ohio State on Monday, Dec. 4. While those may look like big-name games on paper, both traditional powers will be led by first-year coaches undertaking rebuilding jobs. In a span of three days, John Beilein will get his sideline introduction to both Archie Miller and Chris Holtmann.
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Among the 10 conference games scheduled for Friday nights, Michigan State landed two home dates.Indiana will come to East Lansing on Jan. 19, followed by Wisconsin a week later on Jan. 26.
Michigan, meanwhile, will not play a Friday league game.
As for that confounding week off between the Big Ten schedule and the NCAA Tournament, both U-M and MSU have opted to bypass the opportunity to schedule a non-conference game or scrimmage in that stretch. With the conference tournament beginning onFeb. 28 and ending on March 2, and the first round of the NCAA Tournament beginning onMarch 15, both will have a lengthy break in postseason play. The impact of that time off the court will be analyzedad nauseam come March.
Michigan State athletic director Mark Hollis toldThe Athleticthat MSU considered scheduling a game against Gonzaga or St. Mary’s during the week off. Both hail from theWest Coast Conference, which holds its league tournament from March 1 to March 6 in Las Vegas. While the games would’ve been a noble experiment, the logistics didn’t work. The idea of a non-conference game sandwiched between postseason tournaments didn’t quite sit well with Hollis and Tom Izzo.
MSU could’ve played one of its two exhibition games during that week, but chose to keep them in their traditional slots in the preseason. The Spartans will play Ferris State on Oct. 26 and Hillsdale on Nov. 3. (NCAA teams have the option every year of playing either two exhibitions against non-Division I teams or one exhibition and one closed-door scrimmage versus a DI team.)
As it stands, Michigan State has no formal plans for the week off.
Beilein recently toldThe Athletic that he and Izzo briefly bounced the idea of playing a closed scrimmage during the off week. That would’ve ended up as the best secret meeting since Deep Throat met Woodward, but, alas, it wasn’t to be.
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Beilein concluded that any game against an outside opponent “just wouldn’t work.” The game, he believes, would beodd for the team’s psyche. For instance, if the Wolverines are heading to the NCAA Tournament and have a scrimmage or exhibition scheduled against a team with nothing to play for, what’s there to gain?
Instead, Michigan might do its own thing. Beilein said he’s considering holding an open-to-publicinter-squad scrimmage if his team needs to bridge a gap in the postseason.
“It would be something to put us back in a game mode with everything like the pregame meal, the scouting report,” he said. “We’ll try to make something good out of it — something that’s free to the public. I think it’s important that we do something.”
Nothing is finalized for that off week. All is still fluid.
The rest of the Big Ten schedule, though, is a done deal.
Some observations:
• Michigan State also announced four previously unknown non-conference games on Wednesday, adding guarantee games against North Florida,Stony Brook, Houston Baptist and Cleveland State. The game against North Florida will be on Nov. 10 and serve as the season opener at Breslin Center. MSU still has one more non-conference game to finalize before completing its 2017-18 schedule.
• Michigan gets one helluva stretch square in the heart of the league schedule: Jan. 25 at Purdue, Jan. 29 vs. Northwestern, Feb. 3 vs. Minnesota, Feb. 6 at Northwestern and Feb. 11 at Wisconsin.
• While Michigan State is the clear preseason favorite in the Big Ten, Minnesota will be widely picked to finish second. The Spartans will meet the Gophers once (because of course) on Feb. 13 in Minneapolis.
• It might not exactly be a waltz to the Big Ten regular-season title for the Spartans, considering that, quite brutally, five of the team’s seven games in February are on the road. The stretch includes trips to Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Northwestern and Wisconsin. The lone home games in February are Purdue and Illinois.
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• U-M and MSU aren’t the only rivals with one-and-done matchups. The lone matchup between Purdue and Indiana will be on Sunday, Jan. 28, in West Lafayette.
• It should be noted that the Big Ten’s schedule was even more cramped because Northwestern has to operate within the confines of select dates at Allstate Arena, where it will play all 2017-18 home games as Welsh-Ryan Arena is renovated. Additionally, Minnesota’s home dates are squeezed because Minneapolis is hosting the Super Bowl on Feb. 4. The Gophers don’t play at home between Jan. 24 and Feb. 5.
• How’s this for a brutal stretch? Between Jan. 23 and Feb. 1, Northwestern plays three straight road games at Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin.
• Purdue is hit with a double-whammy in early December. The Boilermakers, having lost conference player of the year Caleb Swanigan, will play at Maryland and host Northwestern in those opening conference dates. The games are immediately preceded by a home non-conference game againstLouisville and a trip to the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas.
• On Dec. 2, the same day as the Big Ten football championship game in Indianapolis, the basketball slate will consist ofPenn State at Iowa, Indiana at Michigan and Ohio State at Wisconsin.
• Michigan’s annual “Grad-Transfer Reunion Game” comes onFeb. 18 when Andrew Dakich and the Ohio State Buckeyes come to Ann Arbor.
•Television designations for all Big Ten games will be announced later. In addition to BTN, CBS Sports and ESPN, games will also be broadcast on FOX Sports for the first time.
• Ohio State and Minnesota will play at Madison Square Garden on Jan. 20 in the Big Ten’s annual “Super Saturday” double-header. The nightcap will be a hockey game between Minnesota and Michigan State.
Brendan Quinn is an senior enterprise writer for The Athletic. He came to The Athletic in 2017 from MLive Media Group, where he covered Michigan and Michigan State basketball. Prior to that, he covered Tennessee basketball for the Knoxville News Sentinel. Follow Brendan on Twitter @BFQuinn
