Big Ten Basketball Schedule Released

By Sean · Wednesday, August 15, 2007 · 12:45 AM |  Share | Leave a Comment 

Although we are already in full football mode with the season coming in a couple of weeks, there is always time to discuss college basketball. The reason we’re doing that today is because the Big Ten conference schedule was released for men’s basketball yesterday. With that, we now know what over half of Michigan’s schedule looks like for the 2007-08 season (the non-conference portion should be out in the next week or so).

In John Beilein’s first year as Michigan head coach, he will get to play an 18-game conference schedule as the Big Ten expanded by two games. With that being said, here is the full slate of games (all times Eastern).

1/02 vs Wisconsin (7:00 PM BTN)
1/05 at Purdue (2:00 PM ESPN)
1/08 vs Indiana (7:00 PM ESPN)
1/12 at Northwestern (6:30 PM BTN)
1/16 at Illinois (9:00 PM BTN)
1/19 vs Iowa (7:00 PM BTN)
1/22 at Wisconsin (7:00 PM ESPN)
1/27 at Michigan State (12:00 PM CBS)
1/31 vs Minnesota (7:00 PM BTN)
2/05 at Ohio State (7:00 PM ESPN)
2/09 vs Penn State (4:00 PM BTN)
2/14 at Iowa (9:00 PM ESPN or ESPN2)
2/17 vs Ohio State (1:00 PM CBS)
2/21 at Minnesota (9:00 PM ESPN or ESPN2)
2/23 or 2/24 vs Illinois (2:00 or 4:00 PM ESPN, BTN, or CBS)
2/26 vs Northwestern (9:00 PM BTN)
3/01 at Penn State (8:00 PM BTN)
3/08 or 3/09 vs Purdue (2:00, 3:00, or 4:00 PM BTN, ESPN or CBS)

As you can see, there are still a few games that have dates, times, or TV coverage that haven’t yet been determined. Also, the Big Ten Network is going to broadcast a lot of Michigan games. There are 8 games guaranteed to be on the BTN and possibly two extra on top of that. In year’s past, those are games that would be put on ESPN+ and then syndicated on Comcast Local or other stations like that. All I can say is that Comcast better get something worked out, otherwise there are going to be a lot of people missing out on Big Ten basketball games in Michigan considering most people have them for cable.

Getting back to the actual schedule itself, there are some interesting things to take from it, especially now that it is 18 games. The most noticeable item was that Michigan only plays Michigan State once, and that’s in East Lansing. That really is frustrating because U-M never plays well at MSU but has won in Ann Arbor in recent memory. Michigan State isn’t the only opponent U-M plays only once. U-M will host Indiana, but won’t make the return trip to Bloomington. Other than those two teams, everyone else plays Michigan twice in the usual home-and-home format.

As stated earlier, the non-conference schedule for Michigan is supposed to be out in the next week, so look for that as it will let us see how the entire list of opponents looks.