Big Ten to Announce Divisions, Who Shot J.R.
by Pete Rossman on Sep 1, 2010 1:31 PM CDT
in Michigan State Spartans News Roundup
Email
PrintIn the Big Ten Network's summer programming season finale, the two divisions for football will be announced at 7 PM Eastern, 6 Central. Jim Delany will do the announcing I assume, and Mark Hollis will be in the Big Ten Studios along with three other athletic directors. Andy Katz of ESPN is reporting from several sources that the divisions will be set up thusly (with the division names being entirely my creation):
| CORSO DIVISION | ZOOK DIVISION |
| Michigan | Ohio State |
| Nebraska | Penn State |
| Iowa | Wisconsin |
| Michigan State | Indiana |
| Northwestern | Purdue |
| Minnesota | Illinois |
Once again, this is not definite, but Katz seems pretty sure this is how everything shakes out. For football that seems split pretty evenly, for basketball though, holy crap. If the Big Ten goes to an SEC 16 game model (10 games in division, 6 out), when does State lose that division for the first time, and how far does their RPI drop? For that sake alone, I hope they stick with the 18-game schedule.
We'll have a live blog starting at 6:30 PM tonight of the Big Ten's announcement. Until then, discuss away.
52 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
I'm saddened to have only just discovered this
Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!
by KJ@theonlycolors on Sep 1, 2010 1:41 PM CDT reply actions
Fighting Corsos
KenPom final ratings last three years (10/09/08//AVG)
MSU – 23/8/15//15
UMinn – 32/51/61//48
NU – 85/64/34//61
UMich – 63/50/112//75
NWU – 82/70/158//103
UI – 173/91/116//127
So storied Nebraska basketball might just be the third best team in this division. Yikes. Nice welcome for them.
More data
Based on last 10 years, teams in MSU’s division rank as follows in Big Ten regular season wins: 2, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Neb=12?).
Not gonna happen. Katz hedged pretty quickly on Twitter.
Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!
by KJ@theonlycolors on Sep 1, 2010 2:15 PM CDT up reply actions
Not sure if anybody else put this up, buttttt
These divisions are for football only, not hoops, or any other sport.
by MSUDersh on Sep 1, 2010 4:54 PM CDT via mobile up reply actions
Original report from Katz indicated
using the same divisions for basketball was a possibility.
I agree it’s unlikely, though.
Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!
by KJ@theonlycolors on Sep 1, 2010 5:31 PM CDT up reply actions
For football
I don’t think we could expect much better. IMO Ohio State and PSU will have the best programs over the next decade and they’ll be in the other divsion. If we have a bounce back year and continue to recruit well we will have a chance to compete for divsion titles.
For bball, I can’t see them going to an SEC style format. The divisions would be so rediculously unbalanced. If you were ranking programs based on how you see them doing over the next 10 years we’d be first followed by 5 teams from the Zook divsion.
Agree
If that was in place in 2008, you could have made a very good case that MSU would’ve went to the championship game that year – they beat Michigan, Iowa, and Northwestern, Would have probably beat a very mediocre 6-6 Minnesota team. That Nebraska game would have been tricky though.
Also agreed
Plus you add in the fact that Indiana or Purdue will very likely be our fixed rival.
Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!
by KJ@theonlycolors on Sep 1, 2010 2:16 PM CDT up reply actions
Bball
If anything has become clear to me during this process it is that it is being driven by money and tv ratings. Not to be a cynic but “competitive balance” and “protecting rivalries” seems to mean “which big name teams/games are most likely to get primetime coverage and viewers.” I understand that means that the emphasis is going to entirely be on football divisions that meet those criteria.
But if you apply the same thinking it means for basketball they aren’t going to want to deviate from an 18 game schedule (why drop 2 conference games?) or if these divisions are accurate (as you said Katz seemed confident) allow MSU to only play those top level teams in bball only once. After all it is the MSU vs. Purdue, OSU, Illinois games that are getting picked up by CBS and ESPN.
To clarify
I think this means they stay with 18 games and don’t worry about basketball divisions, and just play an unbalanced round robin like they do now.
by trivialstuff16 on Sep 1, 2010 2:21 PM CDT up reply actions
I think you're right
on both counts.
Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!
by KJ@theonlycolors on Sep 1, 2010 2:23 PM CDT up reply actions
With 18 games
You would play 7 teams twice and 4 teams once. Not that much different than when we were playing with a 16-game schedule. I hated those schedules, by the way, but it would still be better than using divisions for basketball.
by Ducking Delvon on Sep 1, 2010 3:13 PM CDT up reply actions
"North"/"South" will actually work for the division names, more or less
(Via this guy)
Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!
by KJ@theonlycolors on Sep 1, 2010 2:17 PM CDT reply actions
That's awesome
But damn, Nebraska is far away. That will be a tough one to road trip for more than once a decade.
by trivialstuff16 on Sep 1, 2010 2:20 PM CDT up reply actions
Why not...
…switch Nebraska and Wisconsin? The competitive balance in football wouldn’t be affected too much, the competitive balance in basketball would be greatly improved, and a possible North/South division split would make much more sense.
Yes, Penn State/Nebraska would be a long trip, but so is Penn State/Minnesota and they’ve lived with that for a while.
Division names based on this picture
Yin and Yang, competively and spiritually balanced.
At least in football, and not really because of splitting Mich-OSU, Iowa-Wisc
BBall Schedule
Great point about MSU’s RPI taking a hit, after the division alignment in basketball. Luckily I think MSU has a tough enough non-conference schedule that it would allow divisions to have less impact on their RPI. It seems evident that the divisions were built on the premise of football and football alone. Initially it sounded like the divisions may only be for football. Maybe in time they will have different divisions for both sports if they seem too imbalanced. I still like the Cash Division and the Cow Division, definitely be interesting to see what they end up calling these divisions.
http://puremichigansports.com
AP is confirming those divisions
And adding that a sources is saying despite being in different divisions OSU and UM will play the last game of the season every year.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jrBahb12Yui0szrSODBMNv9GhaRwD9HVAB6G0
Really hard to see how that works
Seems like they’d have to do all the crossover games the final week, which would mean abandoning all the other current final-week rivalry games.
Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!
by KJ@theonlycolors on Sep 1, 2010 2:32 PM CDT up reply actions
How much bad blood would that add
If a bunch of other traditional end of season rivalries got ditched to protect that one in the final week of the year.
I could muster up some outrage over not getting to battle for the Land Grant Trophy every November.
by trivialstuff16 on Sep 1, 2010 2:45 PM CDT up reply actions
Fixed crossdivisional rivalries
Guaranteed cross-division matchups are PU-Iowa, Ill-NW, IU-MSU, OSU-Mich, PSU-Neb, and Wis-Minn
Bammo.
Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!
by KJ@theonlycolors on Sep 1, 2010 2:34 PM CDT reply actions
"JC" not "CJ"
Journal and Courier
Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!
by KJ@theonlycolors on Sep 1, 2010 2:34 PM CDT up reply actions
Seems likely if OSU-Mich is really staying in final week
Only teams that really get hosed are Purdue and Indiana. Makes sense for 8 of 12 teams (OSU-Mich, PSU-Neb, NW-ILL, Min-Wisc), which is as good as you’re going to get with this divisional setup.
Otherwise, you let IU and Purdue play each other, which would leave us to play Iowa. (Or you go MSU-PSU and Neb-Iowa in some years.) Not sure how much a hybrid approach in the final week screws up the rest of the conference schedule.
Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!
by KJ@theonlycolors on Sep 1, 2010 2:48 PM CDT up reply actions
Man, MSU-Purdue would have been way more fun.
Who the hell cares about Iowa.
by rcpratt on Sep 1, 2010 5:50 PM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
If the bball is split into divisions like that too....
I will tip my glass to the PSU bball fans that have to play OSU, Wisc, Illinois and purdue two times each year. Not to mention playing an Indiana program that should only get better in the coming years.
by The Baron Von Tito on Sep 1, 2010 2:46 PM CDT reply actions
How this all looks on paper right now
http://theorynine.com/blog/?p=94#/4,7,3,5,8,6|9,10,11,2,1,12
Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!
by KJ@theonlycolors on Sep 1, 2010 2:50 PM CDT reply actions
(Have to copy and paste the full link)
Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!
by KJ@theonlycolors on Sep 1, 2010 2:51 PM CDT up reply actions
Mark Hollis
Has to be smiling right now, no wonder he’s one of the AD’s joining for the announcement tonight. Especially if our yearly protected game is with IU.
This is a good great draw for football in my opinion. Protects our biggest rival as a divisional game. While the “top” teams in our division have to crossover and play the other top teams every year.
Plus it keeps us in a division with Northwestern something Hollis seemed to really want to keep us in that Chicago market. And we get a yearly game with conference newcomer that should generate a lot of excitement, more so than a yearly game with Iowa (outside last year at least)
by trivialstuff16 on Sep 1, 2010 2:55 PM CDT reply actions 4 recs
+1
Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!
by KJ@theonlycolors on Sep 1, 2010 2:59 PM CDT up reply actions
Seriously, we're probably the biggest winners of anyone here.
This is great.
PP-TPW.
The Only Colors
by LVS on Sep 1, 2010 3:06 PM CDT up reply actions
Yes
I retract my previous griping about the stupidity of breaking up UM and OSU.
Actually I still think it’s a little dumb, but it’s dumb in our favor so I can live with it.
I would say Nebraska has to be looking at this division pretty darn favorably too. Especially if you consider that one of the supposed top teams in it has won 3 conf games in the last two seasons. And I doubt they have as high of an opinion of the up and coming nature of our program as we do. If they were in the division this year they would be looking at one tossup divisional game, and a bunch of games they would be strong favorites in.
Really as the authors on this site (and others) have said there is a real danger in trying to predict “competitive balance” these divisions are based on a major assumption that UM is going to come back in the very near future.
If that doesn’t happen everybody in this division will be smiling.
by trivialstuff16 on Sep 1, 2010 3:28 PM CDT up reply actions
on top of that
its good coverage for msu to have hollis there. the other AD’s are um’s, osu’s, and nebraska’s? we seem to be the one that doesnt fit in the equation (not being new, or being the ‘power’ teams). so i like seeing this for MSU’s press/attention.
"not being the "power" teams"
I assume you mean in football, right? While I think I see what you mean here, while the football program has been mediocre at best for the last oh, 30-40 years, MSU athetics is widely respected throughout the country, and has to be in the top 4 overall for the B10. Factor in the hoops program and it’s a no-brainer. Make no mistake about it — the B10 and the BTN both want MSU back in the fold for being a legitimate contender for football. They’ve seen the damage we’ve done in hoops. Imagine if MD can fully awaken the sleeping giant in MSU football…. So, I don’t see anything weird about Hollis being on BTN tonight. Just shows that MSU is one of the more respected athletic programs in the B10, that’s all.
by dcspartylaw04 on Sep 1, 2010 3:49 PM CDT up reply actions
Also marginally more telegenic than the average Big Ten AD
Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!
by KJ@theonlycolors on Sep 1, 2010 4:00 PM CDT up reply actions
I could not agree more.....
……the first thing that went through my mind when I saw those divisions was “could it have been any better for MSU?”
On a personal note, this is great for me- I live in Kansas City, so Iowa and Nebraska are the 2 closest B10 campuses for me to visit. Since they’re both in our division, looks like I will get to see the Spartans somewhat close to home at least every other year!
Really bummed though
about Purdue. But thats me, cuz Im part of an inter-familial rivalry of MSU and Purdue. Thats the game ive gone to every year since i was born. Obviously they dont care about one small family rivalry, but it still sucks.
Ooonst ooonst muthafucka!
Biggest Looser = Penn State
Look at Penn State’s rivalry games. It looses ALL BUT ONE.
Yeah, but that was their only true rivalry anyway
I guess UM might count, but OSU is really where it’s at for them. Plus I could definitely see Nebraska working out for them.
by TheCrestedHelm on Sep 1, 2010 4:04 PM CDT up reply actions
Short-term view
In basketball last year MSU was 8-0 against the Corso Division and 6-4 against the Zook.
Maize and Brew...
isnt’ happy with this set up at all.
For basketball it's great
Northwestern and Nebraska twice a year. Ask Kansas how nice it was to play Nebraska twice a year.
"It ain't over till it's over." - Yogi Berra
I HATE INDIANA
Are you listening Big Ten. If there is one program we MSU fans hate more than Michigan it is the Indiana Hoosiers. A protected rivalry between our programs would be EPIC!!!!
I think that was sarcasm
Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!
by KJ@theonlycolors on Sep 2, 2010 8:54 AM CDT up reply actions
It was my lame attempt at humor
and to convince the dimwits at the league offices to assign us the perennial league cellar-dweller as a permanent cross division “rival” which, suprisingly, seems to have worked.
by TheCrestedHelm on Sep 2, 2010 10:37 AM CDT up reply actions
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
Related FanShots on The Only Colors
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Certain photos copyright © 2012 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
