There have been eight Big Ten games in the 2012-13 basketball season and the home team has won six of them, including: Purdue beating No. 11 Illinois 68-61 in West Lafayette, followed by the Illini beating No. 8 Ohio State 74-55 in Champaign (the Buckeyes had beaten Nebraska by 36 in their opener in Columbus). […]

Rachel Bachman of the Wall Street Journal watched some football Tuesday and noticed that the Big Ten … well … sucks: For three quarters Tuesday, the Rose Bowl seemed like that Clint Eastwood commercial at halftime of last year’s Super Bowl about an auto-producing Rust Belt city rising up to reclaim its former glory. It […]

New Purdue football coach Darrell Hazell told the Journal and Courier that he has talked to each of Purdue’s 13 recruits for next season – and so far they seem to be sticking: “They all sound very good. I’ve bonded with some of them, I think. Some really neat guys. I’m looking forward to getting […]

There are six Big Ten teams among the 20 most valuable college football programs in the country – and they are the six you would expect (though not necessarily in the order you may think). A report by Forbes shows Michigan climbed nicely while Penn State plummeted in the wake of the Sandusky mess. Ohio […]

Forbes takes a look at the worst college football teams for the money – and found the Indiana Hoosiers are the second worst bargain in all the land (behind Kansas). Their three-year analysis of automatic qualifying conference teams found that Indiana spent $58 million between 2009 and 2011 – or $5.8 million per win. On […]

Indiana’s athletic department put out this video recapping the Hoosier baseball team’s field trip to the Dominican Republic. Good production value. And check out the players dancing with the locals at the 35 and 43 second marks.

As Ohio State seeks to monitor how much its athletes spend day to day, the university’s leader is making more money than any of his colleagues across the country, Bloomberg reports: The Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee lives in a 9,630-square-foot Tudor Revival mansion that was renovated for him, featuring a great hall, pool, elevator […]

The New York Times takes a look at Ohio State’s new program to monitor spending by its athletes, which attacks precisely the wrong end of the big-time athletics money conundrum: Ohio State, as part of this compliance makeover, “strongly encourages” athletes, especially football and men’s and women’s basketball players, to open checking accounts. University officials, […]

The good people at Crimson Cast welcomed us on to their new Big Ten Special podcast this week to talk smart about Indiana hoops, the coming Big Ten season, Northwestern’s Big Dance hopes and the groundbreaking Red-Not Red divisional realignment. Click here for a listen: The-Big-Ten-Special. They do a great job over there.

The big question for this week’s poll was: “How far will Indiana fall?” We guessed No. 7 or 8. We were wrong. The secondary question was: “Will Michigan get any of Indiana’s No. 1 votes?” We guessed four. We were wrong. Speaking of Michigan’s No. 1 votes, all three voters who picked the Wolverines also […]

The Big Ten Network is asking readers to weigh in on how the Big Ten’s division’s should be aligned with the addition of Maryland and Rutgers. While this doesn’t take into account other new teams, they are proposing three options, as summed by ESPN: 1. Current plus one: The current Leaders and Legends teams would remain, […]

Maurice Clarett on life at Ohio State back in the day, in a book excerpt via Deadspin: He was a hard worker in practice and in games. But off the field, he was living a completely different life. “I took golf, fishing, and softball as classes,” Clarett says. “Away from class, anything you can think […]

Barry Alvarez, who already makes $1 million a year as Wisconsin’s athletic director, will earn an additional $118,500 to coach the Rose Bowl. Which – in the screwy world of college athletics – makes perfect sense. In virtually any other field, it is asinine. Consider: Who would pick up the slack if one of your […]

The NCAA – in a bid for its highest traffic day in history – today released its 75 all-time March Madness players, 25 all-time March Madness teams and 35 all-time March Madness moments. There are a handful of Big Ten players, teams and moments on the list (along with the NCAA’s commentary): Top 75 Players Scott […]

Just in time for the holidays: Victoria’s Secret’s PINK brand has a special Ohio State line of clothes. Unfortunately, they are just clothes.

Through the first six Associated Press polls of the season, Indiana has had a remarkably consistent number of No. 1 votes – even as the other teams receiving No. 1 votes have changed, as demonstrated in this chart: From the preseason through week six, Indiana has had 43, 46, 46, 47, 45 and 44 No. […]