2014-2015 Big Ten BB schedule released

2014-15 B1G Opponents: Home/Away: ILL, IND, MD, MICH, NW Home: MINN, OSU, PSU, PUR Away: IOWA, NEB, RU, WIS

— Spartan Basketball (@MSU_Basketball) February 28, 2014

Bullets

-speculating a full year into the future is hazy at best, but as we stand today, this seems like a nice schedule, though not a Wisconsin-style sweetheart deal.

-Speaking of Wisconsin, we're heading back to Madison again next season with no return trip for Wisconsin here.

-Conference home record will likely be very good. As per usual, road games are probably going to decide whether MSU competes for a Big Ten Title next year. Iowa should be good again, Nebraska obviously worth keeping an eye on. Avoiding trips to The Barn and Columbus is welcome. Is Rutgers, and their mysterious RAC, a trap game (probably not! although they might be better off converting the arena into a literal trap where like, the overhead jumbotron crushes opposing players upon the opening tip and the three point line is constructed over spike pits.)?

-And uh, as for the Big Ten Title? Remember how lots of people have been talking about how expansion was going to devalue conference play to where it was less about how good you were and more about who you were, and weren't, single-playing? Welllllllp. I mean, eight (8!) single plays, and not even the barest sort of clever solution to avoid unbalanced schedules. Round of applause, I'm sure this won't mess things up almost immediately.

-As noted by KJ and others on Twitter, seems the Big Ten's made a concerted effort to maintaining nearly all of the Big rivalries as home/aways next year (specifically for MSU, the suddenly 'conference title deciding' MSU/UM games thankfully remain a 2 play). That's good. But also as noted, this means at some point in the future all those rivalries are also going to go on single-play status at the same time, and won't that be just peachy for us fans?

In short,

2014-2015 schedule: mostly cheers

This whole round of expansion in general, so far (especially, and I mean most especially, you, Rutgers): boos of the loudest and longest vintage.