With only four games left in the regular season, the Big Ten race is in the home stretch for the Michigan State Spartans. The calendar says that March is less than a week away, and MSU still has a lot to play for. Followingly a humbling loss to the Wisconsin Badgers, the Spartans reeled off two straight wins over the UCLA Bruins and the Ohio State Buckeyes. Table 1 below shows the updated Big Ten enhanced standings as of the morning of Feb. 25/ Table 1 : Enhanced Big Ten standing as of Feb. 25. The Spartans were not the only members of the Big Ten's upper echelon to take a loss over the past week or so. The Purdue Boilermakers lost at home to the Michigan Wolverines. The Nebraska Corn Huskers dropped a game at Iowa, and Illinois Fighting Illini blew a 23-point lead and lost to UCLA in overtime. As a result, MSU is currently in a four-way tie in the loss column for second place. Michigan has a commanding three-game lead in the standings. The Wolverines officially clinched at least a...
After a quiet summer and fall, dark clouds are once again forming near the horizon of the college basketball world. Certain perceived power brokers are once again discussing the possibility to expand the NCAA basketball tournament. I have made my opinions on this matter crystal clear: it is an objectively terrible idea. Any person in a decision-making role who advocates for such expansion should be publicly and repeated ridiculed until forced out of the sport. I have written previously about the many reasons why expansion is such a bad idea. Briefly, there is no evidence to support the idea that the current format does not allow in enough worthy teams. Instead, expansion will almost exclusively benefit unworthy, mediocre high-major teams at the expense of mid- and low-major teams. Expansion also will disrupt the current schedule and popular activities such as office pools. This very likely will impact fans enjoyment of the tournament. To this end, in a world where people can...