NEW YORK (AP) Big Ten basketball came to the Big Apple on Thursday for media day and a look at Madison Square Garden, where the conference will hold its tournament in March.
”This is the mecca of basketball,” Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said. ”It always has been and always will be.”
The Big Ten will make its conference tournament debut at the Garden. The championship game, traditionally played on selection Sunday, will be played a week earlier on March 4.
”It’s made the schedule a little bit funky, a little bit different. But that’s OK,” Minnesota coach Richard Pitino said. ”Anybody who’s played in this building knows the opportunity that it presents and how special it is to play here. And sometimes you got to sacrifice a little bit.”
The shift means playing more conference games in December this season. But that is about to become the norm. The Big Ten announced on Thursday its increasing the conference schedule to 20 games in men’s basketball and 18 in women’s basketball, starting in the 2018-19 season.
”The idea behind the 20-game schedule is to hopefully get more teams in the NCAA Tournament,” Maryland coach Mark Turgeon said. ”Data showed when we went from 16 to 18 we started getting more in.”
Under the new format, men’s teams will play seven opponents twice and six teams once, splitting the single matchups evenly between home and away. In-state rivalries Illinois-Northwestern, Michigan-Michigan State and Indiana-Purdue will be played twice annually.
”I think preserving rivalries that people have grown up with in this changing world is going to be good for us,” Izzo said.
The women’s schedule will include five opponents playing twice and eight once, split evenly between home and away. It also will emphasize state and regional rivalries.
Big Ten men’s teams currently play 18 conference games and the women’s teams play 16.
The Big Ten doesn’t have a preseason poll for order of finish in the conference, but the media votes on a preseason player of the year. Michigan State sophomore Miles Bridges earned preseason player of the year honors and was a unanimous selection to the 10-player preseason all-conference team.
Joining Bridges on the preseason all-Big Ten team: Northwestern’s Bryant McIntosh and Scottie Lindsey; Wisconsin’s Ethan Happ; Maryland’s Justin Jackson; Michigan’s Moritz Wagner; Michigan State’s Nick Ward; Purdue’s Vincent Edwards; and Minnesota’s Amir Coffey and Nate Mason.
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