Why is the Big 10 consistently overrated?

Question

In football, we heard everybody talk about how great the Big 10 is, only to watch Michigan and OSU get their Butts kicked by USC and Florida. The Big 10 teams are ranked high in basketball, but were convincingly beaten by the ACC teams(yet again) in the Big 10- ACC Challenge. Why is the Big 10 always so overrated?

Also, why do they call it the Big 10 when there are more than 10 teams in the conference? I can only guess that Academics are not a priority......

Answer 1

Look at the media power the Big Ten has. First, there are a lot of big states in the confernence- Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania. There are big media markets represented- Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Cleveland. Plus, they get a lot of TV coverage and will be the first conference with a cable station come the summer. Having a semi-regular spot in the Rose Bowl doesn't hurt either.

The Big Ten also sounds a lot better than the Big 11 and will remain to distinguish it from the Big Twelve when Notre Dame inevitably joins in the next ten years.

Answer 2

Its called the Big 10 because they like the tradition. Other than the SEC, what other conference has been around as long with so many of its original members? (NOTE: There was a time after the University of Chicago left and before Michigan State joined that they called it the Big 9.)

As for being overrated most years I agree with you: its as if the polling services have it in their contracts to put three or four Big 10 teams in their top 25 at the beginning of football or hoop season. However to be fair the Big 10 does a good job of beating itself up: its very, very hard to get through a Big 10 football season undefeated and through a Big 10 hoop season without one or two losses to lower-tier conference teams. Even when they DO get through undefeated there are almost always a really close game against a conference opponent.

That's not to say the other conferences don't beat each other up; the SEC particularly is impossible to get through. However, for some reason it seems that the Big 10 does the most damage to itself.

Answer 3

someone's a big ten hater

first off wisconsin wasn't beaten in the challenge, the big 10 overall was, because the acc is an overall better bb conference. who do you think should be number 1 in college bb? for the ap poll i think wisconsin should be, because the team is that good, sure they lost on a neutral court and lost at indiana. they weren't blown out in the losses though. ohio state losses came to top teams, florida, north carolina and wisconsin.

as for football, the big ten is a good conference. what would the games have been like if ohio st, and michigan didn't have more time away than their opponents from playing ball. they might still have lost but the games would have been better. while in the bowl games wisconsin beat arkansas and penn state beat tennessee. minnesota and iowa shouldn't even have been in bowl games, but suprisingly they had two interesting bowl losses.

the reason the big ten, is called the big ten is because the conference had only ten teams until the early ninties, when penn state joined the conference. the conference name stayed because of tradition and the number 11 is disguised in the white of the logo. for academics this isn't the ivy league. harvard athletes overload on classes and play a little ball on the weekend. other conferences, the athletes play ball and take a class or two ... usually scuba diving and weight lifting.

Answer 4

It is called the Big Ten because it originated with ten teams, but Penn State was later added bringing the total to eleven. And Wisconsin won in the ACC Big Ten Challenge. Ohio State's only losses come to top ten ranked teams (with the exception of Clemson, I'll give you that point), where as USC and Florida have losses to unranked teams. Wisconsin also leads the nation in games won and win percentage.
As for football, there again Wisconsin won, but was kept out of the BCS due to the two team per conference rule. And that was just last year, you can't base everything on one year.

Answer 5

Because we allow sports casters and organizations like ESPN and Fox to tell us who is great. We let them set the terms and the teams and they do it because they like to show their games and make them seem like big events. Teams like Gonzaga labor in obscurity because they are not major areas and yet when it comes to playing, such as the NCAA tournament they emerge as do teams like West Virginia. To really know who is the best you have to spend a lot of time reading and evaluating for yourself. ESPN's opinions are scripted and benefit their own organization. Texas Tech is just average but because Bobby Knight is a story and panders to the press we see and hear about them all the time. We are suckers. By the way Wisconsin is a legit big time power but ESPN just likes to talk about Ohio State and the ACC and part of the Big East. The SEC is a very good conference too. They call the teams in the sweet 16 of the tournament cinderella teams...well maybe its because the sports networks have missed them all year. They don't just get great in the tournament. WVU is an incredible story as well...might be national champs next year or one after.

Answer 6

Why can't anybody ever give the Big 10 any credit? This is a tired argument!
By the way, Greg Oden didn't play in 2 of their 3 losses, and Penn State didn't join the Big 10 until the 90's - they just didn't change the name. It will all play out in the tournament.

Answer 7

well the big ten is not very good. They just have a few good teams. In Basketball they have the no. 1 seed, Wisconsin, and the no. 2 seed, Ohio State, so in conclusion there basketball is not that overrated.

But you can say that there football is because all they have is Ohio State and Michigan.

Answer 8

It must be cuz they are always so top heavy...in football and in basketball, they have 2 really good teams that get crazy publicity, but the rest of the teams are terrible. then they hardly produce a championship team.

Answer 9

No kiddin', LeRoy