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Around SBN: The Pros and Cons of an 18-game NFL Schedule

Michigan State Spartans News Roundup

LIVE THREAD: Big Ten Divisions Announcement Show

OK, so we most likely know what the divisions are going to be, and that those divisions will apply for football only.  Still, there should still be some good information coming out of this special, and what else do you have to watch at 7 on a Wednesday night?  Tune into the Big Ten Network or bigtennetwork.com and follow along in this thread.

44 comments |

Big Ten to Announce Divisions, Who Shot J.R.

In 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 |

Linking Laconically foregoes the timeout

Couldn't have drawn it up any better.

More photos » Don Ryan - AP

Couldn't have drawn it up any better.

67 comments |

Linking Laconically is Preparing Its Induction Speech

Michigan State linebacker Greg Jones runs a drill during an NCAA college football practice Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2010, in East Lansing, Mich.  (AP Photo/Al Goldis)

More photos » Al Goldis - AP

21 days ago: Michigan State linebacker Greg Jones runs a drill during an NCAA college football practice Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2010, in East Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Al Goldis)

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Linking Laconically Wants to Wear Number Two, Too

  Tickets_medium

It's the mooooost wonderful maaaaaail, of the yeeeeeeeear . . .

11 comments |

Friday Potpourri: Big Ten Divisions, Championship Game Location, MSU Basketball Scheduling

The MSU basketball's been pretty good there. How 'bout some MSU football?

More photos » Kevin C. Cox - Getty Images

The MSU basketball's been pretty good there. How 'bout some MSU football?

While we've been engaged in recruiting-commit-palooza (we haven't even talked about Darien Harris yet, by the way), the rest of the MSU/Big Ten sports universe has marched on.  Let's move quickly (but not quite laconically) through the news.

Barry Alvarez on Big Ten Divisions

Teddy Greinstein:

Most of the talk regarding Big Ten divisions has centered on the need to split up the "big four" -- Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and Nebraska.

But that thinking might be flawed. Perhaps it's the "big six" -- adding Wisconsin and Iowa -- that needs to be chopped up.

"You have six teams that have separated themselves," Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez told the Tribune. "You can't have four in one division."

That thinking could pave the way for having Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State anchor the east (with Michigan State, Purdue and Indiana) and Nebraska, Wisconsin and Iowa man the west (joined by Northwestern, Illinois and Minnesota).

Boy, a simple East-West geographic split.  Who'd a thunk it?

Alvarez says the Big Ten is using a variety of measures to look at team performance since 1993.  The precise measure they use doesn't really matter much.  If you draw the line at 1993, as opposed to going back 3+ decades, the bottom line is that Iowa and Wisconsin aren't going to look that much different than Michigan, Nebraska, and Penn State.  Any "competitive balance" advantages from swapping Penn State for a westside team are then going to look relatively minor compared to the downside of at least two teams losing annual match-ups against their historical/geographic rivals.  Adding a 9th conference game, as Jim Delaney discussed at Big Ten Media Days, would help in terms of maintaining rivalries, but would also lead to a built-in scheduling disadvantage for, say, whichever team from the west has to play Ohio State every year.

You do have to take Alvarez's comments with something of a grain of salt, though, given that he has a vested interest in Wisconsin avoiding either of the outcomes that would result from moving Penn State to the west: (1) being stuck with Penn State, Nebraska, and Iowa all in its division or (2) getting moved to the east and having at least one of its natural rivalries (Iowa/Minnesota, plus a potential rivalry with Nebraska) disrupted.

Given that MSU would ultimately benefit from screwing with the natural geographic alignment, I'm OK with just about any plausible outcome here.  It'll just be interesting to see whether Delaney has enough confidence in his ability to project ideal championship game match-ups that he's willing to push for an alignment that clearly inconveniences a couple teams from a competitive/historical/travel perspective.

Continue reading this post »

10 comments |

Linking Laconically welcomes Kenny Kaminski

The big news over the weekend, of course, was that Kenny Kaminski, a 2012 forward out of Medina, Ohio, verbally committed to MSU.  Building on intrpdtrvlr's earlier work, newcomer HeckDorland brought it hard to the hoop in his first FanPost, running down the scouting report on Kaminski.  That FanPost is effectively your "Welcome, [New Commit]" post.

Just so you don't think I'm not earning my money here, though, here's a quote from Kaminski on the decision to commit to MSU:

"It mainly came down to where I felt most comfortable at as a player," Kaminski said. "I have always felt really good with Michigan State and they have a great program right now."

Kaminski said he made the commitment now because he "doesn't like lying to the other coaches and not telling them 100 percent the truth," when he knew the Spartans are the team he wanted to play for.

I've updated the projected roster page to reflect the commitment.  Tom Izzo now has four scholarship slots left to use between 2011 and 2012.  In a perfect world, it seems like Izzo would be shooting for Jakaar Sampson or Branden Dawson in 2011 and Denzel Valentine (who reportedly picked up an MSU offer today), Gary Harris, and Matt Costello in 2012.  (On the topic of Valentine, check out these AAU highlights courtesy of UMHoops.  "Draymond on the wing" definitely seems like an apt description of Valentine's game.)  The roster going into the 2012-2013 season would be a little wing-heavy in that scenario, but there'd also be only one true point guard (Keith Appling), so one or two of the wings would need to play the point, as well.

Josh (I'm tired of typing "intrpdtrvlr") will have more on the recruiting outlook soon, I'm sure,   Now, back to your regularly-scheduled links:

Continue reading this post »

35 comments |

Linking Laconically has linebackers that can run

1 comment |


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