Big Ten Coaches are all in Favor of 20 Conference Games

BleedGopher

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per Marshall:

A 20 game slate is set and ready to be played in the Big Ten.

For the first time in Big Ten history, conference slates will be 20 games. This is a more common theme that leagues are beginning to consider as the criteria for dancing in March continues to change.

All 14 Big Ten coaches talked about it in their press conferences and all 14 coaches are in agreement that 20 league games is the right move. Although it will be an adjustment for coaches, they see the long term success that 20 conference games can bring.

A theme in the discussions about scheduling and 20 conference games is that coaches believe quality non-conference games are becoming harder to schedule. Multiple coaches stated that not only is it difficult to ink a home and home series, but its also difficult to ink a home and home series that other schools are not going to back out of.

Another fear coaches have is scheduling a quality mid-major team at home and losing.

Minnesota head coach Richard Pitino noted, “ last year from studying what the NCAA Tournament was looking at, they’re looking at how many good wins you have. They’re not looking at who you lose to. That really isn’t relevant anymore. I mean, certainly we don’t want to lose, but if you can stack up as many quality quad one, quad two wins as you can, it’s good for everybody.”

A major factor in the 20 game slate is adding those two conference games in December. This will attract more fans and allow for teams to have fans feel the excitement of basketball in December as the regular football season is ending and football bowl season is beginning.

Tom Izzo weighed in on that, “Well, always as a coach you get mad at Jim Delany because he keeps moving this thing up, then you see what it does for our league, for TV, for exposure, and he’s brilliant.”

https://www.btpowerhouse.com/2018/1...f-20-conference-games-2018-media-day-schedule

Go Gophers!!
 

I had thought that an extra 14 losses dished around the conference might be a bad thing for postseason resumes, but if Pitino is correct that high quality wins help more than losses hurt, then it probably is a good thing. The additional losses might be a bigger negative for the conference in football, having recently gone from 8 Big Ten games to 9, since there's a fairly hard threshold of 6 wins that has to be reached for bowl eligibility, whereas no such condition exists for the basketball postseason.
 




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