Tagged As: Sports, NCAA, ACC, Big Ten, Duke, Challenge

Every year in November college basketball seems to begin incognito. Sure ESPN tries to make the first few tourneys- the NIT, the Old Spice Classic, Coaches vs. Cancer – get some coverage, but nobody realizes that collegians are taking the court until December with the ACC-Big Ten Challenge.

The NCAA will be sad when this “friendly” competition ends in two years because it has no other vehicle to draw much attention this early in the season. The Pac-10, Big 12, Big East, and SEC have not exactly followed suit and started their own challenges. After watching the ACC teams dominate year after year I am sure no conference commissioner wants to bring the legitimacy of his teams into question like the Big Ten.

The big conference with a chip on its shoulder has come into this season with a woeful 56-30 record and has not won a single year. That is not to say that there have not been close years. The challenge kicked off in 1999 with the ACC edging out the Big Ten 5-4. Since then three of the remaining eight years have ended with the Big Ten one victory from proving they belong in the challenge.

There have been plenty of complaints. For the first six years the competition did not include every team in the Big Ten. I am sure every year the Big Ten front office was dreading the guaranteed loss of the Northwestern game. I am also sure that the ACC was thrilled to have so many Duke University home games.

In the end, the Big Ten is probably wishing it had never exposed the lack of depth and the sheer lack of athleticism its teams have been able to attract. The ACC has been able to remind the nation that every year they have a deep conference with players who can fly.

In fact, the ACC has been able to help its recruiting in the Midwest by displaying such dominating basketball over the years. It used to be that only Mike Krzyzewski was able to use his Chicago connections (my goodness, look at that Polish name) to steal players like Jon Scheyer and Corey Maggette from schools like the University of Illinois and Michigan State.

Now every school, from North Carolina to Boston College has a chance to take the talent out of the cities like Chicago and the cornfields of Iowa. The Big Ten is left with players that increasingly have been deemed “gutsy,” “tough,” and “fundamentally sound.”

Still, I am sure the NCAA will intervene as the challenge to try and encourage the Big Ten to keep taking a beating. Otherwise college basketball and ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN8, “The Ocho,” will have to try and prop up the recently announced challenge between the Mountain West and the Missouri Valley.