Big Ten Tournament: Jim Delany admits scheduling was a mistake
By Zac Snyder
The 2018 Big Ten Tournament will take place a week earlier than usual to accommodate Madison Square Garden’s scheduling. Doing so was a mistake.
The rest of major college basketball will go on with their regular seasons this week but no the Big Ten. Regular season play wrapped up over the weekend and now it’s on to the Big Ten Tournament a week earlier than usual. The reason? Scheduling at Madison Square Garden, who was already locked in to hosting the Big East in the normal conference tournament window.
Apparently dead-set on playing at the Garden in 2018, the Big Ten condensed conference play and moved two conference games into early December to be able to start the tournament in late February rather than early March. It was a head-scratching move from the start, and even conference commissioner Jim Delany recognizes it as a mistake.
Delany admitted as much, essentially calling this a failed one-year experiment. Via the Chicago Tribune:
"“I appreciate the sacrifices the teams made, the impact it had on our students,” Delany said. “Wasn’t good. Wasn’t healthy. I thought starting (the conference schedule) early was OK, but if you look at our schedules (through the years), we’ve been able to give everybody two-day prep (before games) in 99 percent of the cases.“We won’t do it again this way, and I take responsibility for asking the coaches.”"
The conference appears committed to moving the Tournament outside of the traditional geogrpahic footprint but Delany said they will only do so if it lines up with the regular conference tournament week. Delany also indicated about four of five tournaments will be played in what he called the “legacy territory” with the other 20% being played somewhere further East.
The 2018 Big Ten Tournament makes for the second year in a row that the game has been played out East after Washington D.C. was the host city last year. Prior to that, the Big Ten Tournament had never been played in a city other than Chicago or Indianapolis. Chicago and Indy will alternate as hosts from 2019-2022. Based on Delany’s comments we can expect the 2023 tournament to be somewhere in the East before returning for another four-year rotation in the Midwest.
Next: 2018 Big Ten Tournament bracket is set
Playing the conference tournament a week early caused issues on the front end but will also pose a challenge on the back end for teams that go on to the NCAA Tournament. Teams may have as much as a two week gap between the conference tournament and the start of March Madness. Coaches will have to figure out how to make the most of the rest without it turning to rust.