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 […]
Since Gonzaga made a surprise trip to the Elite Eight in 1999, no men’s basketball team on the West Coast — not UCLA, not Arizona — has won more NCAA Tournament games than the tiny Jesuit school in Spokane, Washington. Gonzaga has 39 tourney wins in that span, while UCLA has the most in the […]
The transition to the College Football Playoff era has not been a pleasant one for the Pac-12 Conference. With just two appearances in eight seasons and zero titles to show, the “Conference of Champions” has been anything but in an environment that caters to the richest and most powerful conferences — in other words, conferences […]
There wasn’t much expected from the Pac-12 Conference this year when the men’s NCAA Tournament tipped off. The Conference of Champions hasn’t won a national title since 1997, representing the longest championship drought of any major conference. It didn’t appear that would change any time soon given that the Pac-12 didn’t boast a single team […]
We begin, in fine Hot Takedown tradition, by talking about something that happened shortly after we recorded this week’s episode. The Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences have canceled college football for the fall, with the hopes of trying to play in the spring. We knew it was coming. But what’s interesting about where college football […]