The quintessential Big Ten smoking room.
Indiana, you big banana. Here’s a place-filler open thread because life’s crazy. Probably will have some time/tv/line/SEO-friendly stuff coming your way in a minute. For now: Day 2 Recaps [9] Iowa Hawkeyes 75, [17] Maryland Terrapins 64 The above was actually unfair to Maryland — the Terps had a halftime lead on the Hawkeyes that […]
Indiana, you big banana. Here’s a place-filler open thread because life’s crazy. Probably will have some time/tv/line/SEO-friendly stuff coming your way in a minute. For now: Day 2 Recaps Day 3 Previews [9] Iowa Hawkeyes vs. [8] Ohio State Buckeyes11am | BTN | Ohio State -1.5 (completely made-up) | O/U 136.5 (completely made-up) 12] Washington […]
THAT’S RIGHT I DID IT! This was supposed to go out at 10:30; instead, I had the slightly-off kind of student who just smiles blankly at you spend 45 minutes telling me about the Wikipedia pages he edited and showing me his family tree, which he makes in a geneaology editing platform. I’m not sure […]
In a world of good basketball, these are two games! Today begins the 2026 Big Ten Men’s Basketball Tournament—LIVE!—from Chicago, Illinois. Should today’s games be happening? That’s a highly-subjective question that requires you to remember that last year there were only 15 teams allowed into the Big Ten Tournament and that this year, in the […]
Big Ten bracketology updates—including NIT projections!—ahead of the Big Ten Tournament. Let’s get right to it; here’s your roundup: B1G Thoughts Thoughts? Comments? Concerns? Big Ten Tournament Day 1 previews and open thread dropping in two hours. Make sure you get your picks in the Official OTE Big Ten Tournament Bracket Challenge—those close at 3am […]
Who cuts down the tickets and punches the nets in Chicago? YOU TELL US. Oh hey, the Big Ten Men’s Basketball Tournament starts tomorrow with the Games of Shame! By no popular demand whatsoever, we’re bringing back our clunky and outdated methods of a Big Ten men’s basketball tournament format: the janky Google Form! Fill […]
The last go-round of court-kissing and jersey-framing before it’s on to the tourney. Big Ten Bracketology Roundup No witty thoughts today; I think Washington and USC will be fine entrants in The Crown. Big Ten Final Weekend Saturday, March 7 wisconsin badgers at #15 Purdue Boilermakers3pm | CBS | Purdue -7.5 | O/U 155.5 Indiana […]
Frankly, is the RedHawks’ resume all that good? As the college basketball regular season hurtles toward the finish line and teams jockey for position in the NCAA Tournament—and, of course, the almighty The Crown, an Equally-Prestigious Competition which must be spelled as The Crown every single time with no exceptions—we approach the silly season that […]
Bracketology. But first—a horrible mixed drink. Good evening. Big Ten bracketology soon—in the meantime, what I’ve posed to the writers: What is the worst mixer you’ve ever made? I don’t mean, like, “I have a problem” things like cough syrup and tequila; thinking more things like my own example, Diet Coke and gin. MNW: The […]
An alliterative attempt to assuage anxieties at approaching athletic arbitrations. It is, I am told, almost March. That season is, to many degenerates—including many of you here!—zero hour. Hither comes bracket season. Yon goeth the bottom feeders. THE CROWN APPROACHETH. …or the NCAA Tournament. Whatever. We’ve got bracketology updates—not because, as a Northwestern fan, I’m […]
We’ll always have 49-20. Per reports yesterday, Rondale Moore has died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his hometown of New Albany, Indiana. The Purdue alumnus was 25 and attempting a comeback following a season for the Minnesota Vikings that ended with a preseason injury. Crisis Hotline If you or someone you know is struggling, […]
Add money, coach, and stir. (Add money, coach and stir?) Where’s that panda… Who in the Big Ten could be the “next Indiana”? This morning, as I read Matt Brown’s steady and vital reporting on money in college football, I got to thinking about Hoosiers’ meteoric rise in football, simultaneously explainable and completely inexplicable. Today’s […]
and I, for one, blame Rutgers. The first half ended with an abortive run-out by the Ducks concluded with a missed layup, and the Gophers turning that into a half-court possession in the final ten seconds in which some Gopher—and I promise you, I am not going to learn which one it was—put a baseline […]
One writer’s answer MAY SURPRISE YOU. One of the most disheartening parts of this year’s Super Bowl—which, we should note, featured a winning quarterback from the Big Ten* and a Super Bowl MVP running back from the actual Big Ten—was this ad: Now, I have two notes and a question based on this ad: What’s […]
A REFLECTION ON BIG TEN BASKETBALL Last night I was awake, drinking some wine and watching Penn State play the University of Washington in a Big Ten basketball game. In the 1890s, these were the kinds of sporting contests reserved for weeklong voyages that likely involved the largesse of George Pullman and James J. Hill, […]
Goodbye, Hustle Belt. Thanks for representing authentic college football blogging and the best of the Midwest. It’s been a rough 24 hours for college football in the Rust Belt. Our friends at Hustle Belt announced yesterday that SBNation will be shuttering their blog after 15 years of writing about MACtion and building a small but […]
When you think “talk about The Big Game,” you think “Be miserable with a bunch of Big Ten fans.” A Superb Owl occurs tonight. Here, if you so choose, is an open thread for said game. Super Bowl LX Seattle Seahawks (14-3) vs. New England Patriots (14-3) 5:30pm | NBC/Peacock | SEA -4.5 | O/U […]
A simple buffalo chicken dip or three-ingredient meatballs? An extravagant replica of Levi’s Stadium made out of marzipan? YOU TELL US. I’ve reached that point in my mid-thirties (gross) where life is, effectively, over. MNWildkit is three, SmileyKit is almost ten months, and my waking moments that aren’t spent dying at or commuting to Regional […]
I know this is a site devoted to college sports, but forgive me as I pay tribute to a childhood hero who, nearly 60 years after his greatest act, is still top of mind to a generation (or more) of Detroit sports fans. The death of a childhood sports hero is never easy. It often […]
It’s been somewhat of an unusual season for Michigan. Dusty May’s Wolverines came out of the gate hot, overwhelming opponents in unprecedented fashion. How unprecedented? In a five-game stretch spanning late November to early December, Michigan defeated San Diego State by 40, Auburn by 30, Gonzaga by 40, Rutgers by 41 and Villanova by 28. […]
David Braun has rebuilt(?) Northwestern to a level of respectability. So…now what? Like all good flagrantly shameless comparative articles, let’s start with the “Blind Resume” game, three years into two college football coaches’ tenures: Unless you are a Northwestern coach who has memorized the records of Pat Fitzgerald and David Braun, you are a fucking […]
The number of people who would have seriously taken a preseason bet on Nebraska being 20-0 at the end of January is vanishingly small. It probably consists only of the guys on the team, and then maybe not even all of them. The Huskers, you may recall, were picked 14th out of 18 teams in […]
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Well, we’re almost out of January 2026. As a resident of the Twin Cities, I, for one, say good fucking riddance. As we look back on the 2025-26 season that was in Big Ten football, here’s my—shamelessly lifted from the inimitable and semi-retired Dead Read—Big […]
Ten Fourteen Eighteen B1G Things The Rundown Washington rides the ponies! And then Demond threatens to transfer, remembers —or was reminded— that he signed a contract, and decides to come back. Oregon gets the Penn State treatment Beat a G5 team? Check. Beat a Big 12 team? Check. Lose in the semis? Check. The difference […]
With Monday’s College Football Playoff championship game in the rearview mirror and Indiana having completed the most unlikely of turnarounds, the eyes of the college football world turn to next season. Hope springs eternal, it’s been said, and that’s certainly true for college football fans, who begin each new year with a blank slate and […]