Tell me about the NEW Big Ten

[cancontent]

This thread is great. I've really had trouble wrapping my head around the conference realignment.

I think UCLA needs a shooter. But I'm pretty high on them. Betts really excelled in her first year with major minutes despite having some injuries. I liked the CLW pick up. They could probably use another rotation player and another big. I really like Dugalic and hopefully she can be a bit more efficient this year. I kinda don't get the Nebraska hype but ppl seem really high on them. Maybe I give too much credit to Jaz Shelley.

Re Shelley, wasn't she drafted recently? Nebraska have Markowski and Potter returning so they have core pieces they can rely on. Their depth may not be great, but there were several role players last season. Could see them stepping up into bigger roles this year. Mind you, I don't know if putting them in the top 5 makes sense but they do have a tendency to prove people wrong when you least expect them to.

 

[BigTenGuy]

Re Shelley, wasn't she drafted recently? Nebraska have Markowski and Potter returning so they have core pieces they can rely on. Their depth may not be great, but there were several role players last season. Could see them stepping up into bigger roles this year. Mind you, I don't know if putting them in the top 5 makes sense but they do have a tendency to prove people wrong when you least expect them to.

There is a lot of buzz in Nebraska about incoming freshman Britt Prince. Early on, she was ranked in the top 10 by ESPN, now ranked 25 (Prospects Nation has her at 16, ASGR 21). Locals compare her to Caitlin Clark in terms of what she may do for the Nebraska program.

Allison Weidner also returns from injury in the backcourt. Before injury, she was a double figure scorer who shot north of 50%. The hope is that Prince and Weidner more than make up for the loss of Shelley.

Nebraska has a lot of other good pieces. Was a really good rebounding and defensive team last year, but pretty mediocre offensively. Improve on the offensive end and Nebraska may be in the 4-6 range in the conference. Might help if Amy Williams can find and settle on a rotation. She likes to play a lot of players, and minutes vary widely game to game. Helps make the offense hit or miss, IMO.

Prince,Nebraska Cornhuskers News: Caitlin Clark level commit, more

 

[BigTenGuy]

On the WBB side, the BIG is committed to 18 conference games, versus 20 games for MBB. Seems dumb, as the BIG MBB schedule reveals. In a 20-game schedule, you have 3 double plays, which for MBB, means Oregon, Washington, USC & UCLA will each play each other 2 times. The women should do this as well.

2024-25 Big Ten Conference Men’s Basketball Opponents Announced

2024-25 Big Ten Conference Men’s Basketball Opponents Announced

bigten.org

 

[Floridaduck]

Tough road for Oregon and Washington if USC and UCLA live up to preseason expectations for wbb.

 

[BigTenGuy]

Tough road for Oregon and Washington if USC and UCLA live up to preseason expectations for wbb.

Tough road for the entire BIG. In the McDonald's All American era (since 2002), the BIG has never had the number of high end players that it will have next year. The BIG had 8 McDonald's All Americans this year for the whole 14-team league (if I have my numbers right), the same amount as South Carolina (not including Chloe Kitts, who graduated early and wasn't eligible). Next year, the BIG will have 25+ McDonald's All Americans, 15 of which will play home games in LA County.

 

[WBBTakeover]

Tough road for the entire BIG. In the McDonald's All American era (since 2002), the BIG has never had the number of high end players that it will have next year. The BIG had 8 McDonald's All Americans this year for the whole 14-team league (if I have my numbers right), the same amount as South Carolina (not including Chloe Kitts, who graduated early and wasn't eligible). Next year, the BIG will have 25+ McDonald's All Americans, 15 of which will play home games in LA County.

Yes, the talent infusion into the conference from just those two teams is CRAZY to think about! The rest of the B1G will be playing catch-up for a few seasons.

 

[BigTenGuy]

BigTenGuy, thanks for the insight! I didn’t realize tournament decisions have already been in work!

Format for next year's tourney.

 

[Figurehead]

Tough road for Oregon and Washington if USC and UCLA live up to preseason expectations for wbb.

And Oregon has fat slob coaching so we know the outcome already.

 

[bballnut90]

Format for next year's tourney.

Wow--so no post season play at all for the bottom 3 teams in the league. I guess if you can't finish better than 16th out of 18, there's no reason to complain that you didn't get to play in the postseason

 

[bballnut90]

Tough road for the entire BIG. In the McDonald's All American era (since 2002), the BIG has never had the number of high end players that it will have next year. The BIG had 8 McDonald's All Americans this year for the whole 14-team league (if I have my numbers right), the same amount as South Carolina (not including Chloe Kitts, who graduated early and wasn't eligible). Next year, the BIG will have 25+ McDonald's All Americans, 15 of which will play home games in LA County.

That's a pretty wild stat. UCONN has 11 on their roster next year, more than the entire 14 team Big Ten combined.

The big question mark for the California schools, IMO, is coaching. Programs like Iowa, Indiana and Maryland may not have a ton of talent but have really good coaches and those programs often outperform expectations. UCLA has recruited well forever but hasn't gotten over the hump to make a Final Four, and Gottlieb is doing good things at USC but the product on the court is a little jumbled.

 

[triaddukefan]

Wow--so no post season play at all for the bottom 3 teams in the league. I guess if you can't finish better than 16th out of 18, there's no reason to complain that you didn't get to play in the postseason

Yeah, the ACC is doing the same thing.

 

[nwhoopfan]

The big question mark for the California schools, IMO, is coaching. Programs like Iowa, Indiana and Maryland may not have a ton of talent but have really good coaches and those programs often outperform expectations. UCLA has recruited well forever but hasn't gotten over the hump to make a Final Four, and Gottlieb is doing good things at USC but the product on the court is a little jumbled.

Hold on a sec. Indiana has never made a Final 4 either and Frese hasn't made it since 2015. In fact she's only made it past the Sweet 16 once since then. I'd say Closes's post season record lines up pretty well with Frese and Moren over the last nearly decade. And let's not pretend Maryland hasn't had a whole bunch of talent pass thru. You could probably argue they've had more than UCLA has. Retention of that talent has been a problem, but that's part of coaching too isn't it?

 

[bballnut90]

Hold on a sec. Indiana has never made a Final 4 either and Frese hasn't made it since 2015. In fact she's only made it past the Sweet 16 once since then. I'd say Closes's post season record lines up pretty well with Frese and Moren over the last nearly decade. And let's not pretend Maryland hasn't had a whole bunch of talent pass thru. You could probably argue they've had more than UCLA has. Retention of that talent has been a problem, but that's part of coaching too isn't it?

Those are fair points--it just seems like UCLA is always supposedly knocking on the door but has never broken through or had a statement team that looked like a championship contender or Final Four favorite despite having a ton of talent pass through Westwood. Indiana hasn't made a Final Four either but has had flashes of greatness despite never landing high caliber players. Maryland is a bizarre program in that they've often had championship caliber teams in the regular season but then falter early in the tournament. Frese develops players arguably better than anyone in the country, but half of them transfer out. Stars transferring out (Frese) and inability to land high profile players (Moren) could be attributed as coaching weaknesses, but for me, Close hasn't shown the ability to formulate a team that plays well enough together to be a viable tournament threat in the same manner that Moren/Frese have.

 

[undersized]

x.com

x.com

Can't find this news for other schools yet but I'd suspect there's a conference-wide press release coming soon.

 

[cancontent]

x.com

x.com

Can't find this news for other schools yet but I'd suspect there's a conference-wide press release coming soon.

Makes sense based on their schedule from last season. Gives the impression that each team will have one home and away series going forward. Will be interesting to see how this plays out when more information is released.

 

[triaddukefan]

 

[triaddukefan]

 

[triaddukefan]

 

[triaddukefan]

Lemme go ahead and count the losses for Sparty

 

[cancontent]

Lemme go ahead and count the losses for Sparty

The one land grant you'll hold a grudge against forever. Hilarious.

 

[triaddukefan]

The one land grant you'll hold a grudge against forever. Hilarious.

Yeah 2009 wbb tournament and 2019 mbb....yeah.. No love lost for Soarty. Its a shame cause their Green color scheme is probably 2nd or 3rd best in all of college sports. I will root for them when they play Michigan or Chapel Hill...or Maryland. But that's about it

 

[BigTenGuy]

The BIG office did a pathetic job with the new schedule, in significant part because they felt bound to simply reverse engineer the single plays from last season. Together with the defensible decision to pair USC/UCLA and Oregon/Wash, this has produced some terribly unbalanced schedules, e.g., MSU and IU. Based on ESPN's way-too-early top 25 and bracketology, the predicted top 5 in the BIG are: USC, UCLA, OSU, NEB & Ill. MSU will play those five teams, and MD (predicted 7th), only once, all on the road. Indiana, in contrast, will play those top five teams, and MD, only once, all at home. With this new schedule, the BIG has abandoned its practice of trying to predict the order of finish and then tailor the schedule to try to help competitive balance.

 

[triaddukefan]

 

[Gamecockfan77]

I'm interested to see how good Maryland will be after remaking their roster yet again.

Top 10?

 

[cancontent]

I'm interested to see how good Maryland will be after remaking their roster yet again.

Top 10?

Not sure about Top 10, but I could see them in the Top 25 at some point during the season if things play out as they hope. There's a lot of new pieces that have to mesh together this summer.