Wednesday, September 01, 2010

ESPN Will List Teams In Whatever Order They Feel Like It

Andy Katz went on SportsCenter a little while ago to discuss the likely divisional alignment of the new Big Ten starting next year.  Aside from it sounding like someone was making a salad on the SportsCenter set, here's my other question. Does anyone notice anything odd about this panel?


Normally when you list teams like this, there's some rhyme or reason to it. Is it in order of their 2009 records? No, because Michigan is at the top of one of them. Is it alphabetical, the usual fallback? Nope.

Communication professionals are taught that items in a list are organized in some discernable fashion. But I can't figure this one out... unless they're organized by who everyone in Bristol thinks is the.... what? Most important? Because that would be kind of obnoxious.

Anyway, tune into the Big Ten Network tonight at 7 PM, Eastern, to see this unveiled for real. And wouldn't it be absolutely awesome if it looked nothing like this? Especially since I have no doubt Katz ripped this off of a blog somewhere and is now passing it off as "FACT."

10 comments:

James H said...

My dad was losing it when they announced this, then I told him it came from Andy Katz. He calmed down shortly thereafter. If this is how it is, it's horribly favored for Michigan, at least in football. I feel bad for IU and Penn St if this is how it turns out for basketball.

Ryan F said...

JD - The thought is that basketball will remain a one, 12-team division where you play 7 opponents twice and 4 opponents once for the 18 game schedule.

The lists seem to go by the "competitive standards" criteria of success in the last 13 years or so. Also appears to coincide with how large your fan base is (for football)

zlionsfan said...

I don't think it's tilted that far toward Michigan, and besides, that doesn't really help them right now, does it?

Looking at it from what we could generally expect, it's probably fair to break each division into three groups that just happen to match the order in which the ESPN intern placed them in the graphic. The top two teams have generally had the most success, the next two are a step or so down, and the next two are below that.

Naturally, that's changed a bit in recent times: certainly Wisconsin has been more of a threat than Iowa most years, Illinois made a bit of noise recently, and of course if you asked me which of the Left Division teams was likely to win 10 games in 2011, I would say "none".

But you've got to divide it somehow. I still think the idea of splitting up Michigan and Ohio State with the idea that they could then play for the title is stupid (hello, ACC), but whatever.

This also sucks for basketball, except that if Purdue wins its division, any divisional opponent other than MSU would be a relief. So let's hope for selfish reasons that they don't bother with this in basketball.

BoilerBiker said...

i agree, it's 'competitive standards' or prestige factor, whatever you want to call it.
seems pretty accurate, except i would've put illinois above indiana.

Jeff Seemann said...

Just so you guys know, there is no divisional breakdown for basketball. It's still one league then.

Plang said...

Looks like this is the real deal. As annoying as Katz is, he does some to have some inside information. From time to time.

Michael R. said...

Will this change the "rivalry" games with the drunks from South Bend?

Unknown said...

You do realize this is listed in terms of protected rivals across the column from the other division right? At least based on their best guess. Now with the official divisions and protected rivalries announced, it seems as if they came pretty close. Wow... just wow...

CassavaLeaf.com said...

they said that it was based on the 3 teams they anticipate being atop each division.

J Money said...

Cass -- that can't be; Michigan's at the top of one.

Michael R -- ND is on the schedule through 2021, so that shouldn't change.