The Big Ten Sucks at Winning Championships
I know this is not shocking news. As I was watching the Big Ten get 9 bids to March Madness for the second year in a row, I laughed because none of them have a legit shot at winning it all.
This got me thinking about how crappy the Big Ten has been paying it off in the biggest game. I knew this was true for basketball & football and had a sinking feeling it was true for hockey as well.
Being a masochist, I decided this needed some data to validate what I already knew. I didn't know it was this bad. Here we go...weeeeeee!!!
A couple notes:
- I decided to look at results starting in 2020 until the most recent championship game for hockey, basketball & football.
- I was primarily focused on getting to the championship game and then converting that into a title.
- I was also curious about how much of the field the Big Ten represented to start. More teams in a tourney should conceivably yield more opportunities (nope). This is a little wonky for football where there were only two teams for a while and more recently only 4.
On to the first round of tables.
These are summaries of Big Ten participation in the Championship game as either the winner or runner-up. This also has how many teams made the field.
Hockey (Let's start with the better than horrible):
The Big Ten started as a hockey conference in 2013-2014. For this exercise I counted any of the current Big Ten teams as part of the Big Ten prior to 2013-2014 even though they were competing in different conferences. Again, I wanted to see how Big Ten teams perform and the schools themselves haven't moved or changed since the creation of the Big Ten conference in hockey. This proved interesting in the end for all the wrong reasons.
2000 - 2010 proved a fruitful run for Big Ten teams in hockey. 4 National Championships and 2 Runner-Ups. During that time "Big Ten" teams never made up less than 2 of the 12 teams and more often 3 or 4 of the 12 teams in the tournament. In 2014 "Big Ten" teams made up half of the entire tournament!!!...and still didn't win the whole thing or even play for the championship.
2011 - 2021 has been another story. 2 Runners-up and no Championships despite maintaining a fairly regular presence as part of the field.
Basketball: Sigh....always the bridesmaid, never the bride (except for that one ugly one)
This is actually impressive futility. In 21 years, the Big Ten has never gone more than three years without playing for a Championship. They have won only one of those games. (Yes, 2013, The block was clean and so was the team!!!)
I can't even begin to explain how one conference can come so close without actually winning. I mean, yes, all the cheating in recruiting for so long, but you wouldn't think the Big Ten could even get there. What's even more amazing is this affliction apparently is conference wide as Michigan, Wisconsin, OSU, MSU, Illinois & Indiana have all finished as runner up over this period. Good grief Charlie Brown.
Football...Can we just skip over the $@#! OSU section???
Yes, every one of those represents OSU. Moving on...
The Second Round of Tables
So how does the Big Ten stack up against other conferences? Well, let's see...surely who wins the Championship must be balanced across all the conferences...
Hockey
I have to hand it to the NCHC, they maximize their opportunities. In 21 years they have played in 13 Championship games winning 8 of them.
The Big Ten: 9 appearances with 4 Championships...starting to fade into memory at this point.
And how has it gone since the start of the Big Ten Hockey Conference you ask?
That is some serious suck right there. 7 years, 2 times they've played for it all, no wins.
Moving on to Basketball
Yep, in 21 years the Big Ten has played for the Championship 8 times and the ACC 10, seems pretty respectable. 8 Championships to 1. Honestly, you would think pure persistence would pay off eventually. Nope.
Football: Why am I still doing this???
I gave the 2003 National Championship to USC because I hate the SEC & didn't want to count two champions. 22 Championships played. The SEC has been present 18 times and won 12 of them. The Big Ten (fine, OSU) has been there 5 times with 2 wins. So OSU has a 2-3 record in Championship games during this time...losers! (I knew there was a reason I got this far)
Keep in mind, between the three sports covered here, this is the only sport where a conference has played against itself in the Championship game. This has happened 3 times. You can guess which conference it was all three times. If this isn't the biggest argument for expanding the playoff, I don't know what is.
Grand Summary:
The Big Ten sucks at winning championships. Now you have the data to prove it. You're welcome. Enjoy March Madness and I hope none of you have a Big Ten team winning it all.
As for the Frozen Four? Maybe having the most #1 draft picks ever can finally make a difference. Always have hope...You're our only hope.
Great stuff. Another diary as a board post but more people will probably see it here.
I do think Illinois has a small chance as a team with good talent and a balance of offense and defense (Purdue and Iowa have a couple really talented guys but atrocious defenses, and Wisconsin...F them).
Wow. The data and the OP are both awesome and terrifying. I wish for some Karma this year.
Well done True Blue in Texas.
Well done indeed!
though........maybe if we looked at like NCAA women's basketball...(checks notes on ubiquity of UConn/ND) nevermind.
I like it! Conference-wide bulletin board material!
You're scary... and thorough.
That's what all of my patients say. I'm a proctologist, BTW.
Great, insightful and frustrating data. Thanks for the effort put in.
Where in Texas by the way? Plano here.
Used to be Austin. Moved to Minnesota a while ago. A good lesson to not include your residence as part of your username.
Could be worse.
Not the cold, I mean.
BTW, are you considering going to the game Saturday?
If so, it will be a last minute decision.
I typically go to at least one of the @ Minn games during the season and missed this year because I was getting re-married.
At some point I would like to connect when you come down for a game. Maybe we can convince Hotel Putingrad to risk public exposure and join in.
Agree. He has actually offered to get coffee with me and I've been negligent in taking him up on that; of course, I don't have much time in the Cities all that often (and I'm coming down with a friend and leaving pretty soon after the final horn this week, too).
FWIW if you do show and don't catch me here I'm a tall guy, probably wearing a 2004 maize Tim Cook jersey.
Sure, why not? I'll bring the caviar!
There used to be a Russian Tea House a little way down University from the U of Minn sports complexes. I'm guessing you are still using that as a front?
The B1G is 100% at winning B1G Championships. Always suspected, but it's nice to have confirmation.
It’s rigged.
Good stuff.
I do think part of the problem for the Big 10 is that they tend to be pretty good at lots of different sports but there are always a conference/set of teams that are just solidified at the top. For example, the SEC didn't win 3 titles in basketball - Florida won 2 back-to-back (and haven't really been good since) and UK won one. The Big East had 3 titles from UConn and 2 from Nova but otherwise doesn't have much in the way of contending teams despite being composed of some previously-dominant teams. The ACC is a bit more evenly distributed with teams like Duke and UNC winning multiple titles while UVa, Maryland, and Syracuse picking up wins (I'm ignoring Louisville but they temporarily had their title).
In football the SEC has set themselves up in such a position it's hard to imagine any conference breaking that stranglehold - the ACC winning 3 titles is mostly because FSU had one good year and Clemson was able to replicate SEC-like talent accumulation and had two transcendent QBs. But in sports like hockey and basketball it doesn't feel like any conference has really taken the reins and so I wouldn't be surprised if the Big 10 got on a bit of a hot streak and got back to winning.
I have a tiny bit of hope for basketball. I think the federal investigation had an impact on how much the third party corporate entities influence the concentration of talent. For years Nike & Adidas basically hand picked the teams for Duke, UNC, Kansas, Kentucky, & Arizona.
Unfortunately, when that corrupt practice was broken up, the SEC realized it was game on in basketball recruiting now too!
My only hope is NIL can level the playing field and the talent will start to get more evenly distributed.....finally! I think this will potentially hurt the mid-major's long term as more of the in-between talent moves to the lesser tier Power 5 programs who invest in NIL structures for their athletes, but it should make the competition and tournament a better experience with more parity across the Power 5 conferences.
"Florida won 2 back-to-back (and haven't really been good since)."
They went to 4 consecutive Elite 8s from 2011 to 2014 and another in 2017. How good do you have to be after winning consecutive national titles?
As long as Michigan wins one, I could care less about the rest of the conference.
So you do care about the rest of the conference then. How much less could you care about them? 10% less? a little bit less? 😉
I do care just a little about your joke so I could care less.
OP... I give today's rose to you.
The Batchelor thread is elsewhere.
Echoing others comments: this is great work! Thanks for putting in the time to collect and analyze these data. It doesn't look good for the B1G...
My only question would be how well these teams did compared to the expectations? For example, the 2013 and 2018 teams made the national championship in basketball as 4 and 3 seeds, respectively. But since 1985, only 15 3 and 4 seeds have even reached the national championship game, and only 5 of those teams have won it all. This seems like a pretty good run, given their initial seeding. (The 2012 team taking a dump in the first round as a 4 seed, on the other hand...).
There are championships after Big Ten conference play? I always thought the end of Big Ten play was when seasons ended.
Since I became a MICHGAN fan in the Bo Schembechler era, I am unaware of any championship other than the REGULAR season BIG 10 championship.
Rose Bowl or Bust!
One could argue the big ten plays an outdated style in general in all 3 sports.
This year’s hockey team is definitely an exception.
Not sure that argument can be defended for any of the three sports. The hockey schools certainly don't have any particularly outdated style; Izzo does like his old-style basketball and the conference allows more physical play, but John Beilein was at the forefront of the modern 3-point revolution, and Matt Painter hasn't been a slouch in that department either.
And in football Wisconsin and Iowa weigh down one end of the boat, but Ohio State and Michigan and Penn State are all as modern as any other program in any other conference.
The "outdated" element of football and basketball, if it exists at all, would only apply accurately to roster building techniques, where schools that have more casual relationships with NCAA rules and academics appear to have a perpetual lead.
You can always count the most recent big ten team to win a basketball championship if you want like hockey and add one for MD
That shit was clean!
![Trey Burke Blocks Peyton Siva, Called For Foul [GIF]](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/fetch/c_fill,g_auto,f_auto,h_270,w_480/https%3A%2F%2Ffansided.com%2Ffiles%2F2013%2F04%2Fblock.gif)
That block was squeaky clean! Should not have been any call either way.
There is another angle/view that clearly shows a distinct gap between the two players. (I suppose we have all seen it.)
Such an amazing play on the biggest possible stage and moment. It sucked that we lost but I'm glad to have witnessed that moment.
Also, Spike Albrecht going off and trying to parlay that into a Kate Upton meet was next level.
Now just imagine it was called correctly. I was never salty about the loss but that boiled my blood. They took what was quite possibly the best defensive play of the entire tournament away from a guy during one of the best games of the year. Garbage.
I still vividly remember that play and the look on Burke’s face as he chased the Louisville player down. I was thinking oh shit don’t foul and suspect the ref preordained the call based on Burke’s intensity. Jerk.
Bad numbers, good compilation.
The numbers seem similarly bad for all three of these sports. I think the reasoning isn't always the same, though. In hockey in particular you have both a major realignment in the middle of that stretch, and you have three programs with 18 titles between them suffering historic levels of poor performance at the same time just as the conference has formed. MSU has been terrible for over a decade, and Wisconsin is still scuffling, while Michigan has only recently righted the ship; these programs should really be fine in the long run, so this feels like a blip.
Football and basketball less so. As observed in the OP, a lot of different B1G teams have managed to lose in the title game. But whether it is because of culture or ethics or bad luck, the B1G has not produced one program that is top-5 elite every season, and so you don't have the reliable die rolls you get with a Duke or a UNC or a Kansas* that could produce more champions. You have different programs taking turns being excellent without being legendary... but in most of these cases those championship game losses haven't been gut-punch surprises. They've been equal matchups or mismatches where the B1G school was the underdog and lost.
*That Kansas hasn't won often should be a caution that some of the problem is that it's just plain hard to win titles.
And, of course, in football, you have the SEC and everyone else. Ohio State has tried, with some success, to match the output of the elite programs (several SEC teams, plus programs like Oklahoma and USC when it was good, etc) in the current era, and they've got a title to show for it. But the rest of the B1G looks like the basketball scenario, sadly including our football team.
Anyway, this is kinda depressing. I think the hockey results will come for the conference; I haven't seen anything to suggest the trends in the other two sports will change significantly. Sadly. But you never know, one of these years a team will roll the dice and they'll get sixes; it would be nice if that team was Michigan.
Edit: As much as I believe the hockey programs will rebound fine, given the structural advantages they have and the commitment to competing at some of the schools, the opposite is basically true of baseball, which is not listed here and which is known to be a sport in which the B1G is not on even footing.
Wish you had included baseball and at least women's basketball, but again I think we all know how that would look as well.
I actually thought about doing this for women's basketball and softball because I didn't want to exclude women's sports, but then I realized, it wasn't going to make things any better.
Except women's hockey. I should have done women's hockey. Wisconsin & Minnesota have rocked it!
I feel like I should point out that the NCAA Hockey tournament has 16 teams in the field, not 12. Makes the percentage numbers slightly more reasonable.
In 2014 "Big Ten" teams made up half of the entire tournament!!!
Your chart shows 3 made it in 2014. Maybe you mean 2004, when 6 made it. But again, 16 team tournament. Still not great by any means, but a more accurate percentage would show it isn’t as bad as it seems. Hockey is a hard one to win. The best team is rarely the one who does win it all.
As for wrestling --- B1G teams have won 14 consecutive national championships!!! And it would be a shock if the number isn't 15 after this weekend.
-------
(the conference excels too in winning national titles in women's Volleyball, women's Lacrosse, women's Ice Hockey and men's Gymnastics too, FWIW).
Thank you for this glimmer of hope.
much love to all those sports - i especially love watching wrestling - but they are all a lot less competitive, no? Like, isn't men's gymnastics mostly big ten teams? I know there are a fair amount of wrestling programs but I don't think any other major conference takes it anyhwere near as seriously as we do. VB, lax and hockey is legit tho.
The B1G dominates in wrestling. Always has and always will.
OkSt says hello
They say hello from 2006.
Buuuuuut....have you seen wrestling???????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Edit: didn't see the posts above mine.
Football - SEC dominance makes everyone else look bad. My fondest sports wish is that some parity returns to CFB. I hope Lincoln Riley makes USC great, I hope Cristobal succeeds at Miami - and I hope the B1G keeps getting stronger. It certainly can't hurt that Michigan is once again a major player.
Basketball - B1G seems to be a deep, evenly matched conference year after year. Talent is disbursed among a bunch of teams. If you took an all-star B1G team they'd probably fare pretty damn well against the best of other conferences.
Conversely, Duke, Carolina, Kentucky, Kansas and Arizona seem to always dominate their leagues and attract most of the great players. Probably some cheatin' going on, but they're also magnets for talent like 'bama is in football.
UConn and Villanova seem to win more than their share of championships - I'd say that's due to fantastic coaching. Coach Beilein's teams regularly punched above their weight too.
Hockey - Formation of B1G hockey conference pretty clearly has hurt the top programs' ability to win championships. Prior to B1G hockey league, one or more of Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Sparty always seemed to be strong NCAA contenders.
Hopefully that improves as the conference becomes more established and some of the newer programs mature (and maybe we'll add some teams too).