Big Ten Basketball Looks to Move to 20 Game Schedule

Reports are coming in that the Big Ten basketball coaches have voted to move from an 18 game schedule to 20 staring in the ‘18-’19 season. The report comes from Jon Rothstein of Fan Rag sports.

In doing so, Big Ten teams will most likely drop two non conference games from their schedule to accommodate the two additions to the conference slate. The Big Ten would not be the only conference doing this. The ACC voted in 2016 to move to a 20 game schedule staring in the ‘19-20 season.

This could lead to Big Ten teams dropping some lesser known and lower RPI schools in favor of stronger conference teams. Think of it as Nebraska dropping Northern State University and Delta State for another two games with Maryland and Indiana. While those games were nice opportunity to pad the wins column, they did very little for the teams RPI.

Then again, if teams have a fairly tough conference slate they could very well pick up two more softer schools to play before conference play begins.

Big Ten media days starts this Thursday, October 18th so expect an official announcement by then.