In their continued effort to figure out a tournament format that Will Bolt and the Huskers can’t win, the Big Ten Conference has announced its 3rd format in as many years.
The Big Ten knows the stigma that the southern teams and selection committee have when looking at its teams, so it try’s to protect the top teams who have a chance at an at large NCAA bid as much as they can. That turned into a debacle last year, as they went with a pool play format, followed by a 4 team tournament. They made the tie
breaker to advance out of pool play the highest seed. That rendered a ton of games absolutely pointless, and made the opening night game for Nebraska against Michigan State an elimination game.
The conference is protecting the top 4 seeds by having seeds 5-12 play in a double elimination tournament over the first three days (Tuesday, May 19th through Thursday, May 21st) in Omaha. The top 4 finishers then join the top four seeds in an 8 team single elimination tournament starting Friday with the championship game being Sunday May 24th.
On paper, it seems like a good balance between rewarding/protecting the top 4 seeds, and giving the other qualifiers a chance at advancing, and most importantly not having to potentially play a meaningless game or two in their final week together as a team.
It will challenge the pitching of the lower ranked teams, with someone potentially having to pull a 2024 Nebraska type run and pitch in 6 games. But not just the number of games pitched, it will also have a 2-3 game offset between pitchers that teams are sending out to the mound. In the first game of the single elimination tournament, a top seed will more than likely be throwing its Friday night starter against a lower seeds 3 or 4th starter, unless the lower seeds get creative with their arms in the double elimination tournament.
All in all, it looks to be a major upgrade to the pool play debacle, but also not taxing the top teams pitching like Nebraska in 2024.
I’m sure after the Huskers win this one, they will figure out something different next year.
