Big Ten reduces games played per season
>>Print ViewPublication Date: 11/18/2009
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The Big Ten is changing its women’s basketball conference scheduling format from 18 games to 16 for the 2010-2011 season, and the coaches are relieved.
As it is set up now, each Big Ten team plays home and away with nine of the 11 Big Ten teams, and play the remaining two teams once.
This season, Purdue will have a difficult stretch when it has two road games in four days. One of those is a conference road game against Northwestern on Dec. 6 in the middle of the non-conference season.
“I think it’s a very difficult challenge for all of us, because we play the Big Ten/ACC challenge right before that (Dec. 3 @Virginia),” Purdue head coach Sharon Versyp said. “So it’s not like you’re having an opponent that you get to choose.”
Among the Big Ten coaches, there is a general positive reaction to the change to a 16-game schedule, including Michigan’s head coach, Kevin Borseth.
“I really felt our biggest concern with the (18-game) scheduling was our inability to fit enough games in the time frame that we had from the start of the season to the conference tournament,” Borseth said. “Going back to 16 games in our schedule makes sense.”
Minnesota head coach Pam Borton pointed out that it will be nice just to not have to play two more strong Big Ten teams.
“We, as women’s basketball coaches, are going to get it down to a more manageable conference schedule instead of us beating each other up,” Borton said.
Once the bulk of the Big Ten season starts this year for the Boilers, they will have 18 games in 53 days, which on average, is less than three days between each game.