Big Ten’s future doesn’t look bright:
“Early returns do not bode well for the Big Ten in the grand scheme of college basketball this season.
“While the conference is strong at the top, it has been disappointing after the top three or four. With finals lull going on across the nation, it’s a good time to crunch the results.
“Most noticeable, the conference has been weak against similar competition, the leagues who comprise the loosely defined ‘high-major’ category of Division I.
“Thirty-one conferences populate D-I. You can choose anywhere from six to 10 leagues as high-majors, depending on your opinion.
“Like European soccer, some of the mid-major conferences, such as the Mid-American and Missouri Valley, play their way into high-major status during any given season.
“And normal high-majors sometimes play their way into the middle of the pack, as the Pac-10 did last season.
“But in any given year you can usually depend on eight conferences to be clustered at the top of Division I: the Atlantic Coast, Big East, Southeastern, Big Ten, Conference USA, Big 12, Mountain West and Pac-10.
“These are the conferences the Big Ten always competes against for recruits, national stature and NCAA at-large bids come March. The Big Ten has not been pulling its weight recently, witness its paltry three NCAA bids last season, lowest in 20 years since before the expansion of the bracket to 64 teams. …”