In 1896, a group of administrators from Midwestern colleges met in Chicago to settle the rules for what was then called the Western Conference, which would later be known as the Big Ten. They agreed in writing, according to an account in the next day’s Chicago Tribune, “to keep inter-collegiate athletic contests within their proper […]
If it were up to me — and I grew up in East Lansing, Michigan, where you could literally hear the roar of the crowd from Spartan Stadium in my backyard on game days — the Big Ten would have stopped expanding after 12 teams. Penn State, added in 1990, and Nebraska, in 2011, were […]
March used to be a banner month for the Big Ten. In the first two decades of this century, no league was better at maximizing its opportunities in the men’s NCAA Tournament. From 2000 to 2019, the Big Ten reached 16 Final Fours, most of any conference, and 48 Sweet 16s, two shy of the […]
In the latter stages of the first half of a matchup between Michigan and Baylor last month, Wolverines guard Leigha Brown fed the ball inside to Naz Hillmon. The 6-foot-2 Hillmon was guarded by NaLyssa Smith, a 6-foot-4 big who very likely will hear her name called first or second in this April’s WNBA draft. […]
The first two weeks of the college football season raised an unusual but not unreasonable question: Was Ohio State going to be less than its usual dominant self in 2021? In the season opener at Minnesota, the Buckeye defense was uncharacteristically leaky. The Gophers’ expected points added (EPA) per play was 0.08, then the fifth-highest […]