Men’s Basketball

If the Big Ten hadn’t expanded its conference schedule from 18 to 20 games this season, Northwestern’s regular season would already be over. Instead, the Wildcats will be facing a team with everything to lose Wednesday in Welsh-Ryan Arena.

NU (12-17, 3-15 Big Ten) hosts Ohio State (18-11, 8-10) for the Cats’ second-to-last game of the 2018-19 regular season, already having secured a last-place finish in the conference standings. The Cats are enduring a 10-game losing streak, and the Buckeyes are right on the NCAA Tournament bubble.

According to Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany, the conference expanded its schedule to give its best teams more opportunities to compete against tournament-quality opponents. The extra conference games mostly replaced non-conference matchups against low-major opponents.

“We thought playing against each other more was good, and good for the Big Ten and good for college basketball in general,” Delany said at Big Ten Media Day in October.

Wednesday’s matchup is an unintended consequence of that change. Ohio State has to play an additional game against a team with a losing record instead of one against a team that could bolster the team’s tournament resume. The Buckeyes badly need another win over a highly-ranked opponent, but all they can do in Wednesday’s game is avoid calamity by beating NU.

The expansion from an 18-game conference schedule to a 20-game one comes a year after only four Big Ten teams were selected for the NCAA Tournament. In 2017-18, Penn State and Nebraska were left out of the field after the Cornhuskers won 22 games over the season and the Nittany Lions won 21.

The selection committee passed on those two teams because they both lacked a significant number of high-profile victories.

“Last year (the Big Ten) had the fewest amount of Tier 1 wins in the top six conferences,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said in October. “We had the most Tier 3 wins. We had the most scheduled Tier 3 wins. This forces us to play more people because ultimately getting four teams in the NCAA Tournament is not good enough.”

In some ways, the expanded schedule has worked. In ESPN’s latest bracketology, eight Big Ten teams are listed in the field of 68, double the number of teams from last season. But if Ohio State falls in Evanston and earns an additional bad loss, that number could drop down to seven.

For the Cats, the expanded schedule gives them the opportunity to compete against teams with a lot to play for as they round out their seasons. In addition to the Buckeyes, NU plays Purdue on Saturday, and the Boilermakers are currently tied for the top of the conference. The Big Ten regular season championship will likely be decided at Welsh-Ryan Arena this weekend, even though NU won’t be playing for anything.

Over his tenure at Rutgers, coach Steve Pikiell has had similar experiences, sitting at the bottom of the conference and having to play teams heading down an important home stretch. At Big Ten Media Day, he said he recognized the potential side effects for teams struggling in conference play.

“Every game’s important when you’re (low in the standings),” Pikiell said in October. “When you’re adding two more hard games to a schedule when you’re picked last in the league, it’s a tough place to be.”

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Twitter: @2021_charlie