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Post by ironman88 on Jul 12, 2019 16:09:51 GMT -5
Wow, huskergeek, thanks for this conference-wide schedule summary. IIRC, Wisconsin had the meat grinder schedule last season too, didn't they?
Of the top five Big Ten Conference teams from last year (Nebraska, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin and Penn State, respectively), four teams (Nebraska, Minnesota, Illinois and Penn State) double up against two of the other four in 2019. But Wisconsin has the pleasure of doubling up against three of the other top four conference teams, including Penn State, Minnesota and Nebraska.
That's a tough way to earn a high RPI.
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Post by huskergeek on Jul 12, 2019 16:45:44 GMT -5
Wow, huskergeek, thanks for this conference-wide schedule summary. IIRC, Wisconsin had the meat grinder schedule last season too, didn't they?
Of the top five Big Ten Conference teams from last year (Nebraska, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin and Penn State, respectively), four teams (Nebraska, Minnesota, Illinois and Penn State) double up against two of the other four in 2019. But Wisconsin has the pleasure of doubling up against three of the other top four conference teams, including Penn State, Minnesota and Nebraska.
That's a tough way to earn a high RPI.
Could be worse. A couple years ago when Michigan State was a top ten team, Wisconsin had the misfortune of doubling up against Nebraska, Penn State, MSU, of course their travel partner Minnesota. So, they played eight games against the other four elite B1G teams. Conversely as their travel partner, Minnesota was doubled up against Iowa, Rutgers, and Michigan and thus played only five games against that group. Unfortunately with those two being travel partners and the B1G schedulers propensity to decide that one of the two should double up against both Penn State and Nebraska, it tends to work out that the two often have very different roads to the conference championship. |
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Post by huskergeek on Jul 12, 2019 16:57:32 GMT -5
Whoa. Now that is a plaid for the ages. Yup. I could remove the style information from the table, but it'd be a pain in the... You get the idea. |
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Post by TuesdayGone on Jul 12, 2019 17:08:18 GMT -5
Wow, huskergeek, thanks for this conference-wide schedule summary. IIRC, Wisconsin had the meat grinder schedule last season too, didn't they?
Of the top five Big Ten Conference teams from last year (Nebraska, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin and Penn State, respectively), four teams (Nebraska, Minnesota, Illinois and Penn State) double up against two of the other four in 2019. But Wisconsin has the pleasure of doubling up against three of the other top four conference teams, including Penn State, Minnesota and Nebraska.
That's a tough way to earn a high RPI.
The 2017 season for Wisconsin was the most difficult BIG schedule i can remember Played 8 matches against top 10 teams (Nebraska, Mn, PSU, and the senior class at Mich St) Wisconsin went 11-9 in BIG and ended year number 8 in Country overall in Pablo. |
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Post by ironman88 on Jul 13, 2019 16:05:53 GMT -5
Wow, huskergeek, thanks for this conference-wide schedule summary. IIRC, Wisconsin had the meat grinder schedule last season too, didn't they?
Of the top five Big Ten Conference teams from last year (Nebraska, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin and Penn State, respectively), four teams (Nebraska, Minnesota, Illinois and Penn State) double up against two of the other four in 2019. But Wisconsin has the pleasure of doubling up against three of the other top four conference teams, including Penn State, Minnesota and Nebraska.
That's a tough way to earn a high RPI.
Could be worse. A couple years ago when Michigan State was a top ten team, Wisconsin had the misfortune of doubling up against Nebraska, Penn State, MSU, of course their travel partner Minnesota. So, they played eight games against the other four elite B1G teams. Conversely as their travel partner, Minnesota was doubled up against Iowa, Rutgers, and Michigan and thus played only five games against that group. Unfortunately with those two being travel partners and the B1G schedulers propensity to decide that one of the two should double up against both Penn State and Nebraska, it tends to work out that the two often have very different roads to the conference championship. |
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Post by ironman88 on Jul 13, 2019 16:08:23 GMT -5
One other item about schedules...pre conference. Minnesota is playing one tough pre conference schedule this year, including matches against Texas, Florida, Oregon, and Stanford.
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Post by vbjustice on Jul 29, 2019 20:30:14 GMT -5
Someone’s getting ready for the season
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Post by notpriddy (COIF) on Jul 30, 2019 6:48:13 GMT -5
Over Purdue Coach Shondell's tenure I have come to respect what he has accomplished in reestablishing Purdue volleyball as a B1G and national force. His success brings me back to thoughts of legendary Purdue volleyball Coach Carol Dewey who began Purdue's intercollegiate volleyball program in 1975 and ended her coaching career in 1994 as Purdue's all-time-winningest women's coach with a 469-256 record, an outstanding .647 winning percentage. purduesports.com/sports/2018/5/17/sports-w-volley-spec-rel-history-html.aspx |
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Post by redcard🏐 on Jul 30, 2019 12:01:33 GMT -5
Just watched the late November 18’ match of WI at Penn State on the BTN. What a great match-overtime in the 5th with WI winning. I believe this was the same weekend PSU gave Minn their only B1G loss. This season is going to be fun and I think it will be a battle to the end between 4 or 5 teams.
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Post by tallguy86 on Jul 30, 2019 22:25:00 GMT -5
5th in conference probably = top 10 in the country - so hard to show disrespect by placing a team 5th or 6th. Among Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Nebraska - I would be most surprised to see Nebraska finish 5th or worse in conference, yet I kind of think Minnesota and Wisconsin have a better chance of coming in 1st. Way too much depth in the league to think anyone is a lock for at least 4th or 5th place. I can see Penn State, Illinois, and Purdue challenging even though it seems like Purdue is such a long shot to win. How much better will Ohio State and Michigan State be? Don’t you think Purdue has a huge gap to fill without Atchinson? Not sure they can score enough. Is one of their army of pins coming in going to step up enough for them to be top 6? |
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Post by badgerbreath on Jul 30, 2019 22:39:58 GMT -5
Just watched the late November 18’ match of WI at Penn State on the BTN. What a great match-overtime in the 5th with WI winning. I believe this was the same weekend PSU gave Minn their only B1G loss. This season is going to be fun and I think it will be a battle to the end between 4 or 5 teams. The good thing about this year's schedule is that there are a lot of competitive matches among the top teams through the year. Last year it felt like most of the action was done before the 10 or 12th match. I imagine there will be something to play for right to the end. |
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Post by tallguy86 on Jul 30, 2019 22:40:41 GMT -5
To follow-up on the idea of a coach being hired into the B1G, and successfully challenging the existing B1G coaches, I would say the 2019-2020 season could be a good indicator of B1G coaching 'mettle'. Penn State's Rose seems to be fading. Wisconsin's Sheffield shook things up when he entered the conference having inherited a Badger team already loaded with talent (however some might say his teams have underperformed since his Carlini teams). Minnesota's McCutcheon has successfully stockpiled a huge amount of talent (however, he too, could be accused of underperforming with last years talent. And, what's with his players starting to go elsewhere). Nebraska's Cook seems to always produce a top team (the question now is who is going to replace Foecke as the constant savior of next season's team). And, not to be overlooked (by me, at least) is Purdue's Dave Shondell (always producing a blue-collar team that finds a previously hidden star to elevate the Boilers to unexpected heights). And most intriguing for me will be to see what Illinois' Chris Tamas can do with his third Illini team. He's going to have perhaps more overall talent than he has had in his previous two seasons, however, his three returning setters have not shown that any of them can deliver a consistently good second contact ball. I think John Cook is truly an exceptional coach. He makes a difference. I did not feel that Nebraska had close to the talent of Minnesota or even Illinois (and possibly even Wisconsin) last year. And yet, there was Nebraska back in the Finals and competing really well. If Sun wasn't so bad in the Final Four, they might have won it all. I thought Minnesota was clearly the most talented team in the Big 10 last year. I think their shocking early exit from the tournament and all the transfers has me scratching my head as to what is really going on there. Doesn't make sense to me. But one thing I know is that Cook will have his team ready and they will likely over-achieve. Nebraska had talent. Overachieve? Nebraska had two top-3 recruited OH’s and top ten middles. RS was their weakest hitter. Maloney was a stud. Position for position, the only spot Illinois was better was at setter. Nebraska didn’t overachieve at the end of the season, they underachieved during the season. Let’s not get crazy. |
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Post by permagrin on Jul 31, 2019 8:41:51 GMT -5
Minnesota shows 2 Sunday matches at msu and ohio state at 11 am, must be to accommodate tv but that seems weird
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Post by n00b on Jul 31, 2019 8:49:53 GMT -5
Minnesota shows 2 Sunday matches at msu and ohio state at 11 am, must be to accommodate tv but that seems weird So that’s noon local time? That’s a fairly common start time. |
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Post by buckybadger8 on Jul 31, 2019 18:07:58 GMT -5
Minnesota shows 2 Sunday matches at msu and ohio state at 11 am, must be to accommodate tv but that seems weird Their end of season match with Ohio State always seems to be a Sunday game. I know Minnesota hosts Penn State in football that Saturday before. Maybe the reason why? Parking for the Covelli has to be a mess on football game days. Same is the latter with Ohio State in Columbus. Always hosting a home football game so if the football game isn't a noon or 3pm game, they schedule for Sunday. |
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