Big Ten basketball: New scheduling protects Michigan-Michigan State rivalry
By Zac Snyder
The Big Ten revealed new procedures for basketball scheduling which includes protecting in-state rivalries like Michigan vs. Michigan State.
The Michigan State Spartans and Michigan Wolverines will play just once this college basketball season. It’s one of the major downsides of conference expansion. More league opponents means playing more opponents one time at the expense of a home and road game against more opponents. In the case of rivalry games like Michigan-Michigan State and Indiana-Purdue, that’s a huge deal.
And it’s a deal that is changing. The Big Ten announced new scheduling procedures that go into effect next season. The league schedule will increase from 18 games to 20 on the men’s side. More games means more opportunities for double meetings between teams in a season. But the league has taken an additional step to get more meaning out of as many of these meetings as possible.
According to details released by the conference this morning, each in-state rivlary (Michigan-Michigan State, Indiana-Purdue and Illinois-Northwestern) will play 12 times in a six year cycle. That’s huge as it means Michigan and Michigan State will be locked into a home and road game against each other every year.
The league has also gone about protecting regional games over non-regional games. The league didn’t define what a “regional opponent” is for each team, but they did regional opponents will meet ten times over six years, where as non-regional opponents will play nine times.
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Again, details regarding what regional means was not immediately available but it’s a safe bet Michigan and Michigan State fans can expect to see Ohio State more often than Nebraska in the coming years.