Report: Big Ten will only invite 15 teams to conference tournament next season, sticking with 20 league games

  • 01/26/2024 1:48 pm in

When the Big Ten moves from 14 league members to 18 beginning next season, it will invite only 15 of the 18 teams in the league to the conference tournament.

Jon Rothstein reported the news early Friday afternoon.

The league is also planning to stay at 20 league games despite adding four new programs to the conference. That will mean the majority of conference matchups will be single plays and creates an even more unbalanced schedule than the current setup with 14 teams.

Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington are joining the league beginning this summer.

According to Dana O’Neil of The Athletic, here’s how the revised conference tournament will work:

Under the new format, the league will add a game to the Wednesday slate, with the 10th-place finisher playing the 15th-place finisher. The winner of that game faces the No. 7 seed on Thursday, with the tournament otherwise proceeding in its normal fashion, and the top four seeds earning a double bye until Friday.

This year’s Big Ten tournament for men’s and women’s basketball will be played in Minneapolis and all 14 conference members will participate.

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