One day preps

[uneblinstu]

In the preseason, Coach Miles made mention that they had more one day preps (ODP) than usual due to the compression of the schedule with the conference tournament being a week earlier than normal, meaning there's only one day off in the schedule between games. I seem to recall other coaches mentioning it, though I don't remember who at the moment. They didn't happen much in the past, but they do a bit this year. After hearing Coach Miles mention it, I was curious how many the rest of the conference had. Every team had one in December. The rest of these numbers are just from here through the end of the regular season. Here's what I found:

 

# of ODPs:

3: 2 teams (Indiana, Nebraska)

2: 5 teams (Ohio St., Maryland, Minnesota, Illinois, Rutgers)

1: 5 teams (Michigan St., Michigan, Penn St., Northwestern, Iowa)

0: 2 teams (Purdue, Wisconsin)

 

# of times opponent is on the front end of their ODP:

Michigan St: 4 (1 at home, 3 on the road)

Purdue: 4 (1 at home, 3 on the road)

Ohio St: 3 (All at home)

Michigan: 1  (On the road)

Maryland: 1 (On the road)

Minnesota: 1 (On the road)

Penn St.: 1 (On the road)

Nebraska: 1 (On the road)

Northwestern: 0

Indiana: 0

Wisconsin: 1 (At home)

Illinois: 1 (At home)

Rutgers: 1 (On the road)

Iowa: 1 (On the road)

 

# of times opponent is on the back end of their ODP:

Michigan St.: 2 (On the road)

Purdue: 0

Ohio St.: 2 (1 at home, 1 on the road)

Michigan: 0

Maryland: 3 (1 at home, 2 on the road)

Minnesota: 0

Penn St.: 1 (At home)

Nebraska: 1 (On the road)

Northwestern: 1 (At home)

Indiana: 3 (On the road)

Wisconsin: 2 (1 at home, 1 on the road)

Illinois: 1 (At home)

Rutgers: 4 (2 at home, 2 on the road)

Iowa: 1 (on the road)

 

Some observations:

- For two teams to have three and two to have none seems absurd to me. It wouldn't be hard to take one from NU and IU and give it to Purdue and Wisconsin. Then everyone would have one and half of the teams would have two and those would just be the breaks. I realize making a schedule is harder than most realize, but this probably shouldn't have happened.

- Indiana probably got the biggest shaft. NU's first two happen on back-to-back weeks, but then get 8 days off. Indiana has theirs on 3 consecutive weeks. That's pretty brutal.

- That said, NU does have the only series where both ends happen on the road. Iowa, Northwestern and Ohio St. all have a series where both ends are at home.

- A couple of these happen this week. The bulk of them happen in the middle of January and the middle of February. If this was going to be a thing, they should have probably done it like they did in December, where everyone does it at the same time. That would have been relatively simple and fair to do it that way, but the B1G doesn't do things, anything, that way, frankly. Especially when it comes to scheduling.

 

Those were my thoughts on a quiet New Years Eve.

Edited January 1, 2018 by uneblinstu

[HuskerFever]

Does anyone know how much influence a network like BTN or ESPN has during scheduling, if any?

[uneblinstu]

It is interesting to contrast it with the Big 12. For instance, KU plays on Big Monday 4 times, which creates 4 ODP situations for them. Big Monday is different, though, because it's a high profile deal. There's a sense of specialness to it. B1G doesn't really have something like that. This is just something to shoe-horn the schedule in before the tournament.

[Huskerpapa]

Not saying it is a good deal for us, but we have depth and veterans which provides us a bit of an assist.   

[basketballjones]

That’s interesting stuff thanks for putting that together 

[AuroranHusker]

Big Ten has had Super Tuesday in the same vein as the Big 12's Big Monday.

 

[uneblinstu]

34 minutes ago, AuroranHusker said:

Big Ten has had Super Tuesday in the same vein as the Big 12's Big Monday.

 

Similar, except that until recently, the Big 12 only had one game on that day, a showcase game. That's not the case this year. Not sure when they made that change, they've got a few more games on Monday nights. Big Ten, at least while NU's been in the conference, never made it that special. There was a big showcase game on ESPN, but they've always had several games on Tuesday nights. Big Ten had never treated a day as sacredly as the Big 12 used to treat Monday night.

 

*Looks like the Big 12 added a few Monday night games in recent years. Not a ton, but about 3-4 games would compliment the Big Monday game on ESPN2 or ESPNU. But it looks like a recent addition and it also looks like they've added a few more games to that this year.

Edited January 2, 2018 by uneblinstu

[AuroranHusker]

1 minute ago, uneblinstu said:

Similar, except that until recently, the Big 12 only had one game on that day, a showcase game. That's not the case this year. Not sure when they made that change, they've got a few more games on Monday nights. Big Ten, at least while NU's been in the conference, never made it that special. There was a big showcase game on ESPN, but they've always had several games on Tuesday nights. Big Ten had never treated a day as sacredly as the Big 12 used to treat Monday night.

 

I'll have to pay more attention to it going forward. Those prior events were both on ESPN, i.e. Big Monday & Super Tuesday.

[uneblinstu]

1 minute ago, AuroranHusker said:

 

I'll have to pay more attention to it going forward. Those prior events were both on ESPN, i.e. Big Monday & Super Tuesday.

They are, my point is that the Big Ten hasn't treated Super Tuesday like the Big 12 treats/treated Big Monday. They'll schedule three or four other games up against the showcase game on ESPN. Big 12, until recently, hasn't done that.

[AuroranHusker]

9 minutes ago, uneblinstu said:

They are, my point is that the Big Ten hasn't treated Super Tuesday like the Big 12 treats/treated Big Monday. They'll schedule three or four other games up against the showcase game on ESPN. Big 12, until recently, hasn't done that.

 

Ahhh, I see what you mean. That's a good point. 

 

And the Big Ten now has games scheduled for every day of the week...

[uneblinstu]

Just now, AuroranHusker said:

 

Ahhh, I see what you mean. That's a good point. 

 

And the Big Ten now has games scheduled for every day of the week...

Yeah, this schedule is so goofy. I don't think this will be a trend, but I'm not sure it was worth it just to get to play in MSG.