That was supposed to be my Big Ten Tournament hypothetical matchup.
I love the Big Ten regular season and would love an EPL style round robin and everyone play each other twice and skip a conference tournament… but that isn’t how the sport works.
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Who will complain if you do play them? If the conference tournament week was used instead to get Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Ohio State (assuming those are the teams still in contention at that point) to 20 league games each, what would there be to complain about in terms of who is awarded the regular season title?
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I agree. This is primarily a branding challenge. It’s a year and an environment in which making stuff up on the fly is in bounds. You can have an event of the same duration in the venue you already booked, and give the networks paying you that money better games to market to viewers, so the main criteria are in place. The networks DGAF if it’s called a tournament or how the auto-bid process works. They care about matchups that put butts in seats. With the financial flows preserved as imagined, it’s not a huge challenge to figure out how some sort of season-end extravaganza will work even if some teams haven’t played 20 games and others have. The first and only ever Big Ten Battle Royale or some similar slogan. Marketing people earning their salaries won’t have a hard time sorting out how to promote a one-time event that promises more good head-to-head matchups than the conference tournament usually yields.
Ironic and amusing that a person who actually might be a good fit in this scenario is Dave Brandon.
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I get that. But I’m saying if that game still needs to be made up, and the regular season title is still in play for both teams, why not prioritize playing that game over bringing Northwestern, Maryland, Nebraska, etc. to Indy.
It’s not “how the sport works.” Sure. But Michigan is coming off a two week shutdown and we’re literally making up stuff on the fly to figure out a Big Ten champ, etc. None of this is “how the sport works.” But there’s a solution in here that gets you a conference champion and doesn’t bring all 14 teams together for no real reason.
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It’s called the Big Ten Tournament 
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Oh, there’s always something to complain about. Michigan is going to have some quick turnarounds from game to game to even get to 18 games, sure, but there will absolutely be some inconvenient scheduling for some of their opponents, as well.
If they lose to Michigan, their fans will howl, call it a “schedule loss”, and blame the accommodation of Michigan.
The “reason” is to determine the Big Ten Tournament Champion and who gets the auto bid to the NCAA Tournament.
These are absolutely not “better games” than what you’ll get in a Big Ten Tournament setting.
“Tune in to see if Michigan can prove it is the best team in the Big Ten fair and square” isn’t the same kind of draw as “14 teams competing in one tournament”
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You’ve been talking for weeks if not months about how conferences need to decide how their auto bids will be determined and whether or not actual tournaments will be played, no? Not sure why it’s suddenly being held as sacred.
You can hold a 6-team round robin, or makeup the handful of games that need to be made up among the remaining conference contenders, and call it the “Big Ten Tournament” for all anyone cares.
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That list could be more relevant to this discussion, a more accurate reflection of the discussion and more attractive to the networks if it has Michigan/Illinois on it. That’s a game that needs to be played. Again, this is a make-it-up-on-the-fly year. It doesn’t have to adhere rigidly to an older plan that isn’t likely to happen.
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I just don’t follow why this is better than playing the tournament? The teams that need games are the teams in the middle of the league. If you are playing games that week, you still have the safety risk/COVID risk leading into the NCAA Tournament.
I think you start by asking what’s so great about the tournament. Is it the on-court product, or something else?
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I’d prefer bringing a smaller number of teams to Indy (you can quibble with the exact number) as opposed to all 14 teams, including a handful that have almost nothing to play for. I also think it’s preferable to play zero games than to play the full tournament. In reality, I expect the full BTT to be played, I just don’t think it’s a great idea.
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Bringing a smaller number of teams won’t help you choose a regular season champ though because Nebraska is very unlikely to play 20 games. For example.
I can’t imagine the B1G leaving a nickel on the table if they can help it. They likely believe that their protocols have been a success to this point. From their perspective, I can’t imagine why they would scale down the BTT.
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Absolutely. A few teams won’t get to 20, likely including Michigan. But that’s not going to prevent crowning a champion no matter what so I don’t quite get what you mean here.
Think it’s time I get back to work in any case 
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I am one who doesn’t want Michigan to play in the BTT because I don’t want the added risk of getting Covid right before the NCAAT. With that said, I also don’t care one iota if Michigan doesn’t play 20 regular season games. That’s just not the goal. Why do we care if we play PSU and NW rather than in the BTT? Both scenarios you’re playing games and adding risk. My preference is to eliminate the risk altogether and not play games, but if games are going to be played anyways, the BTT makes way more sense than making up regular season games that literally don’t matter to anyone except a couple teams.
Also, y’all are acting like we know that Michigan can’t be crowned conference champ if they don’t play a full schedule. Based on the football season, we know that’s not true. The B1G just hasn’t announced the criteria. Does Michigan need to play 17 games? 18 games? I highly doubt they need all 20. And if other fan bases complain that Michigan isn’t a legitimate champ because they didn’t play 20, I’ll say who cares as I’m watching them raise a banner at the beginning of next season.
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My point was that a smaller tournament is just a different tournament. It isn’t finishing the regular season.
If there aren’t 14 teams at the BTT it is likely going to be because the good teams/locks opt out though. Not because other teams are excluded.
If there are makeup games that week I would guess they squeeze one or two more games in Mon/Tues in a desperate situation. I can’t imagine playing makeup games the second half of that week though.
Has there been any other confirmation of the Larry Lagge report that the team can resume basketball activities today?
Just his report that said “allowing athletes to have their skills, strength & conditioning assessed by coaches”… Not sure that completely qualifies as “basketball activities” given the way it is worded but that’s what we’ve got.
I think that depends on what the university does. OSU did not sit passively and wait for the conference to make a decision. It set expectations. Is Michigan going to do the same? Is Gene Smith going to theoretically reciprocate Warde’s advocacy for OSU by asserting that a Michigan deserves it if it has the best winning percentage but has played less games? These are open questions. Conference leadership is going to be attuned to perceptions and relationships.
I know there’s elements of this that are too late to change and, for better or worse, aren’t going to be discussed in the open, but I’d love to know any sliver of information about what the AD thinks about that stuff, or if it hasn’t gotten to the point of thinking about it yet.