A sign you may have broken things. ACC and Big Ten teams are considering playing nonconference games against… other ACC and Big Ten teams. IE, intraconference nonconference games.
Some Atlantic Coast Conference schools are considering scheduling future nonconference games against -- ironically -- other ACC schools, league athletic directors and coaches told ESPN.com.
This is because the ACC is even more totally borked than the Big Ten. They have crossover rivals and eight games so…
non-primary crossover rivals in the Atlantic and Coastal divisions may only play each other once in an 11-year span.
College football is so, so stupid.
As far as the Big Ten goes, it doesn't sound like anything is going to come of their mutterings:
… Penn State AD Joyner said some discussion about playing B1G opponents in non-con games. Former Mich AD Martin proposed this years ago.
— ESPN Big Ten (@ESPN_BigTen) May 13, 2014
Martin was kind of a space cadet, and I think he "proposed" this one year when the Big Ten was still at 11 teams in an effort to have the Jug game played even when Minnesota rotated off the schedule. This is how far we've come: Martin was alarmed that Michigan would have Minnesota rotate off the schedule once a decade, and now ACC teams will see each other once a decade.
It may be time to go in the thinkin' tank and come up with another ludicrously complicated dynamic scheduling setup that provides something resembling satisfaction. Or I could just… not do that again.
Even if the infractions committee was a lazy committee, and the committee was most certainly was that, perhaps the laziest in the entire NCAA, which would place him high in the running nationwide…
A sign you have definitely broken things. The NCAA does not have a major violations case and has not had one in six months.
Last August, the NCAA trumpeted a new violation structure and additional committee members to review cases more quickly and efficiently.
How is that going?
So far, the NCAA has no Division I major violations cases on its public database since Fordham's baseball team was penalized last November. The nearly six-month stretch marks Division I's longest without a completed major case since an eight-month period in 1997 and '98.
Very, very quick and efficient, then. Add another reason to the enormous pile of reasons to deregulate kids getting money from wherever they want: they already are and the NCAA isn't even trying to do anything about it anymore. Even NCAA honchos admit it, and they won't admit anything.
“I think everybody would agree the NCAA enforcement procedures are broken,” Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said. “They haven't heard a case in eight months. Without the weight of perjury or the power of subpoena, it's a wonder they get to the bottom of anything."
Let's take all the money wasted on compliance people and spend it on anything else. Full cost of attendance scholarships. Non-revenue sports. Cotton candy machines. Whatever.
Excellent timing, at least. Caris LeVert had surgery on his foot to repair a stress fracture and will be out for a couple months. He should be back for Michigan's late summer training and make the Europe trip, so any effect on Michigan's season should be minimal.
Yup, definitely cursed. Rutgers picked up Minnesota transfer Phillip Nelson this offseason, just in time for Nelson to get into real bad trouble:
The unknown man then struck Kolstad, who witnesses say was knocked out before Nelson allegedly kicked Kolstad's head "like a soccer ball." Steph Stassen, who witnessed the incident, told the Star Tribune that Kolstad was "unconscious after the first punch" and didn't brace himself as he fell to the ground, hitting his head.
Rutgers dismissed the guy without saying anything horrendous, which qualifies as their best crisis communication in a decade.
Hair trigger. Michigan's axed men's tennis coach Bruce Berque after ten years, nine of which saw Michigan make the NCAA tournament. Berque was 66-25 in the Big Ten, and tennis has long been dominated by warm-weather schools. Firing the guy after one mediocre 6-5 Big Ten season that still saw Michigan make the tourney is very much on the Excellence Demander side of the scale.
Muddling through. Elsewhere in non-revenue sports in which guys have gotten a quick hook, baseball finishes its regular season this weekend with an odd nonconference series against #22 Kansas.
A late surge saw Michigan win 4 of their last six conference games and slide into fifth place. That puts them in the Big Ten tourney and lets them avoid a potential second-round matchup with 19-2 Indiana, one of the super-rare Big Ten teams that appears to be a threat to reach Omaha. The Hoosiers are 35-12 overall and #9 in the most recent Baseball America poll.
That's a lot. Penn State drew 72k to its spring game, which is kind of amazing since State College is tiny and isolated. That's more than the combined attendance for Michigan(15k… generously) and Michigan State(35k). Penn State did a big old thing with autograph lines and such, and held it late. Here's the impact of holding your spring game at the beginning of April versus the end:
Still, the April 26 crowd on the sunny, 55-degree day, was believed to be an unofficial spring game record in East Lansing and ranked as the 13th-largest in the nation.
Michigan, meanwhile, drew 15,000 for its spring game amid 38-degree temperatures on April 5 in Ann Arbor.
Also punting drills.
More hearings. Some Democrats are prepping another hearing for the NCAA, one which seems like it will feature fewer twits waving iPads around because they just googled something:
"As colleges and universities generate growing revenue and publicity with each passing year for colleges and universities, the NCAA, and sponsors, the potential for exploitation and abuse of student-athletes has never been greater. In turn, the need for an organization dedicated to protecting student-athletes is more important than ever."
Referencing Northwestern scholarship football players' effort to unionize and a National Labor Relations Board regional director's determination that that athletes are employees who can unionize, the letter says "if the NCAA were accomplishing its mission of protecting student-athletes from exploitive practices those efforts would be unnecessary and likely unsuccessful."
Protecting athletes from exploitive practices? This is its mission? It may be its mission statement.
Etc.: McGary won't work out at the NBA combine, which is not good for him. Talking Michigan with NW blog Lake The Posts. Illinois suspends C Darius Paul for all of next year. Paul was probably going to get 15-20 minutes backing up Egwu. Happy trails to UMHoops beat guy Joe Stapleton. Clay Travis is a twit.
The ACC moves its hoops championship game to Saturday; Big Ten is insistent on Sunday. Indiana previewed.