Buckeye Blogger NetworkThe Buckeye basketball teams backs are against the wall. A big time football player is rumored to be contemplating sitting out a season to his protect draft status and financial future. It’s Wednesday night, let’s rumble!
Hoops getting interesting
As you’re reading this, or maybe after you read this or a little before you read this, the Buckeye basketball team will be on the court facing the Minnesota Golden Gophers at The Schottenstein Center. This is a huge week for the Buckeyes after being slapped in the face with a backhand in Wisconsin on Sunday to the tune of a 71-49 beat-down.
Backs against the wall after the Wisconsin meltdown
At 18-7 the Buckeyes see their backs against the wall but home turf on their side as they face a must win situation against the Gophers. This would set up a huge showdown/rematch, again at home, against Michigan State. Win both games and watch the swagger return to set up the final push before the tournaments begin. A split has to be what the Buckeyes consider a worst case scenario as losing both would be catastrophic.
Michigan State took on the Indiana Hoosiers last night in a #1 vs #4 matchup. In a tight game that was actually pretty exciting to watch, it was the Hoosiers holding on to win 72-68 and keep their #1 ranking at the Breslin Center in East Lansing. Sparty will now come to Columbus facing the possibility of a two game losing streak and certainly a little grumpy. Tom Izzo will have his team ready for what should be a war at 4pm on Sunday. (CBS tv) Read More
Guest post from our friend Lurking_Michael… great work, bro- I’m guessing you want one of these for Christmas, right?
Legends and Leaders?
After completely screwing the pooch with their non-geographic divisional alignment, this task was not going to be easy, but I can’t imagine that a worse job could be done. The “winners” – Legends and Leaders. Huh? Wha?
Just off the top of my head, what about Heartland and Midwest, or Great Lakes and Great Plains or even Black and Blue? That’s just riffing, without any research or thought at all, and all of those are STILL better than Legends and Leaders. Plus, those examples I just gave are far less likely to be ridiculed by the rest of the footballing nation, which is already gleefully rubbing our collective noses in it.
Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany says, correctly, that any time you have something new, it will take time for people to get used to. However, Delany can rest assured, no matter how many years go by, the division names the Big Ten have chosen will continue to suck more than words can say. Read More
Update – Special Rules for Texas and ND? Interesting addition, posted by the same guy who infuriated Delaney so much with his previous information releases.
Update 2- Boise State to the Mountain West? Is this an attempt to replace Utah or keep them from jumping to the Pac-10?
Update 3- BSU to MWC, officially.
Update 4 – Omaha World-Herald reports that Nebraska is officially a member of the Big Ten. Welcome home Cornhuskers!
Today’s a big day for many of the conferences in the nation, so let’s quickly debrief and make sure everyone is on the same page going in to today’s announcements. If I don’t link to a particular article for a point it’s because there are more articles discussing it than are worth linking to (or the point is made in a previously posted article).
Oh Big 12, we hardly knew thee.
What we know:
Pretty interesting news keeping us entertained during this offseason, eh? It’s only going to get better in the next couple days.
A match made in heaven?
Update: This is not just a re-post of the Omaha World-Herald article, that is cited to support speculation that Nebraska will actually join the conference. Multiple sources have confirmed this morning that an official offer has been extended to Nebraska by the Big Ten.
Update two: Orangebloods is reporting that the Nebraska board of regents has given the OK for an formal announcement on Friday.
Update three: ESPN is finally catching up with this story, and reporting similar information regarding Friday’s announcement. Also, according to ESPN
A source close to the Nebraska program told ESPN’s Chris Mortensen that athletic director Tom Osborne informed athletic staff members within the past 24 hours that the Cornhuskers were going to make the move to the Big Ten conference.
Update four: Item IV of the University of Nebraska Board of Regents agenda reads as follows: “Resolution regarding UNL athletic conference alignment”. Take from that what you will.
Let the chain reaction begin.
Who will be next? Notre Dame? Missouri? Texas? Someone east?
The speculation has been endless, and will continue until the dust settles on this whole thing (for excellent coverage and speculation about the expansion check out this blog), but having an official offer out there is exciting to say the least and will certainly set the ball rolling on other candidates for expansion.
For what it’s worth, I personally like the idea of adding three (preferably Nebraska, Notre Dame, and Missouri), extending a take it or leave it offer to Texas and A&M, and looking east or back to the Big 12 if they say no for the final two to get us to the super 16.
Looking good!
We will see what happens, but with this move, we should be finding out sooner rather than later.
Check out this great post by the guys over at Black Shoe Diaries for a nice take on expansion and the impact it will have on tradition and whatnot.
My take: Ohio State vs. Michigan is way more important than Pitt vs. Penn State, but the general point remains the same.
They're going to need a new logo soon.
Special note of interest, if Notre Dame were to join the Big Ten , that is 3 of the top 5 winningest teams in college football history in the same conference. In the somewhat unlikely scenario that Texas came on board as well, bump that number up to 4 out of 5. Throw in Nebraska and that is 6 of the top 10 winningest programs of all time in one conference.
How is that for tradition?
