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00:00Mike DiCorsi is the famed sports writer from the Sporting News.
00:06He's also very popular on the Big Ten Network.
00:08They just announced their season broadcasting schedule and partners and everyone that's
00:13involved and of course DiCorsi on the top shelf, the top rung of the talent there will
00:19be covering massive Big Ten basketball.
00:22The only problem with Big Ten basketball is the last time they won a NCAA championship
00:27was before Christ and you wrote about it and Tom Izzo talked about it and you're both
00:35right.
00:36I mean it is really embarrassing and I got to tell you, you know you got problems in
00:40that conference when the most exciting thing going in the Big Ten is my Indiana Hoosiers.
00:50Six and 0, scoring 40 plus points a week.
00:53Your boy Cignetti getting it all accomplished in Bloomington.
00:58Well Scott as we can attest, the present company included, if you want something done right
01:03you got to get a Pittsburgher.
01:05That's right.
01:06It's quite obvious.
01:08Kurt Cignetti has done a magnificent job in energizing a program that's had very few moments
01:14of excitement in its history really.
01:17They had some nice moments under Lee Corso, they had that one terrific season under Tom
01:22Allen in 2020 during the pandemic year when Michael Pennix was their quarterback.
01:28But this is really something to see and they've got a week now to prepare for Nebraska, which
01:35I've always viewed as a pivotal game for them.
01:38It's a home game, should be a great crowd.
01:41It's a great opportunity for the Hoosiers and if they get it, then they'll be talking
01:47about not just the silly ranking stuff that we're talking about now, but like some serious
01:53possibilities.
01:54I mean they still have to play Michigan and they have to play Ohio State, etc.
01:58But if they can get Nebraska at home, they have real possibilities of having a significant
02:05season, not just bowl eligibility and we get to go play in Shreveport or whatever.
02:10No, we're talking about maybe them playing some serious games in December and January.
02:15I mean, it really is unbelievable and I guess my question is, look, I think Michigan has
02:19a horrible rack of quarterbacks and Indiana doesn't have that problem.
02:25Now I think Ohio State is loaded with talent, absolutely shredded every position.
02:31They're incredible.
02:32But they're playing them in Columbus and I think what will be fascinating to me is if
02:36for once in their life, they could hang with Ohio State because they've never been able
02:41to hang with Ohio State and they certainly haven't done well against Michigan.
02:46But I think that Michigan team, like I bet on Washington last week at Husky Stadium,
02:51that's a hostile place to play.
02:53I've been there in Seattle.
02:54It is a tough place to play and they lost and their quarterbacks, I mean, how many of
02:59them are they going to use?
03:00How many do they have?
03:01They started bringing in Tuttle.
03:03I thought it was YA Tittle.
03:05I didn't know what I was seeing.
03:06I think Indiana can actually beat them.
03:12Them meaning the Wolverines or them meaning the Wolverines and the Wildcats?
03:16The Wolverines.
03:17Yes, I think that's true.
03:18I want them to hang with Ohio State if they can hang with them and be in the game.
03:23Let's say it's a wild game and that they would gain respect nationally, like they're legit
03:30if they can hang with them.
03:31I can't win a bunch of games against nobodies and then get beat by 30 by Ohio State because
03:36they'll lose all the respect in five minutes.
03:39I think a lot of that depends again.
03:42That Nebraska game is huge, which I believe is next weekend.
03:47They've got this weekend off and then next weekend they face Nebraska.
03:50It's a huge game.
03:51They've got some other games that are losable along the way, but obviously the ones you
03:56circle after this are the Michigan home game and the Ohio State road game.
04:01I think if they can continue to succeed as they have, beating the sort of teams that
04:09they've beaten, like Maryland, a good team, not great, but good, winning at Northwestern.
04:15If they can continue to go in that vein, I think being competitive against Ohio State
04:21would mean a lot.
04:23I think it's more important that they win the winnable games, which when you look at
04:27what the odds would say, that's pretty much everything left except for the trip to Ohio
04:33State.
04:34So, why is Big Ten basketball so good, yet so far away from a title?
04:43Yeah, you know, a lot of that's been circumstantial.
04:47They've been in a lot of Final Fours.
04:49The last time I checked, and I haven't checked this in a little while, but the last time
04:52I checked, they had about as many Final Fours, if not more, than any conference in college
04:57basketball since the 2020 season, or excuse me, the 2000 season, when they won their most
05:03recent national championship.
05:05So they've had a ton of Final Fours, they just haven't had the right team to get all
05:09the way home.
05:10I mean, I think Purdue last year's Purdue team would have won the championship a lot
05:14of years, including probably the prior year against the 2023 UConn team, but they weren't
05:20beating UConn 2024, one of the really terrific teams we've seen in this century.
05:27Michigan State makes the Final in Detroit in 2009, well, great, but the team that they
05:32played against, Carolina, was one of the legendary teams in college basketball history.
05:38They were fantastic.
05:39They had four first-round picks on their team.
05:42It's just sometimes it works out like that, and they have always been a deeper conference
05:47than they have been in a conference that produces the absolute elite team.
05:53That's just the way it's been for most of this century.
05:56It's been great for their fans to watch, it's certainly been great to call on BTN, but producing
06:02that one special, extraordinary team just hasn't happened.
06:07You know, I got to ask you, when you go into this season, do you think that, like, you
06:13know how those new teams from the West have come into the Big Ten in football?
06:17What do you think they're going to be like when they come in on the basketball side?
06:20Well, I think that, first of all, you've got the fact that they were very careful about
06:26scheduling these games.
06:29They've gone more for multiple days of rest, two to three days rest in between games.
06:37They've been very careful about that, something that wasn't always a high consideration in
06:41conferences like the Pac-12 in the past.
06:44They were used to playing on one-day prep a lot.
06:47Now you get more days of prep, more days of opportunity if you have a bad game to try
06:53to regroup for the next one.
06:55We've seen, to this point, statistically, teams have not performed well in football
07:01when traveling multiple time zones.
07:03But they've performed fine in other sports.
07:05I mean, I pointed out, we talked about this a couple weeks ago, Pitt's women's volleyball
07:10team has been to the West Coast on multiple occasions already this season and is undefeated
07:15wherever they play and has only lost one set so far.
07:19So I don't know that the travel is impacting every athlete in every sport.
07:23I think basketball players will do fine with it, especially with the care that, at least
07:27in the Big Ten, has been presented to scheduling.
07:29I'm not saying they haven't in the Big 12 or the ACC, which are also going to have long
07:33trips.
07:34I just haven't studied that.
07:36So you wrote an article about a player that I really like watching play basketball, Juju
07:41Watkins.
07:42She's something else.
07:43And basically, in essence, you said that she can pick up the pieces from Kaitlyn Clark,
07:50you know, leaving Iowa for pro basketball.
07:53And this girl, I got to tell you, I think her and that Rice kid at UCLA can both flat
07:58out ball.
07:59Those are great women's basketball players.
08:02Yeah, they were in the Elite Eight last season with Juju as a freshman, a much different
08:09player than Kaitlyn Clark.
08:10Kaitlyn Clark is a point guard who can fill it up.
08:15And she showed that this year by leading the WNBA in assists.
08:19And before she left college, breaking the all-time NCAA women's Division One scoring
08:24record.
08:25So she showed that she can do both those things.
08:28Juju is more of a wing athlete, scorer type player.
08:32And as Lindsay Gottlieb, the terrific coach for the SC women, told me last week, she doesn't
08:40like to use these comparisons, but it's a little bit more like a like a LeBron, like
08:46a Michael Jordan, excuse me, like a Michael Jordan kind of player.
08:49Not that it's she wasn't super comfortable using the comparison, but it's that it's that
08:55kind of player.
08:56It's that kind of player who brings dynamism and intelligence in terms of how to play and
09:02great shooting ability and fills it up.
09:04And I think that's what you'll see from Juju in the Big Ten this year.
09:07I can't wait to see her another season into her great career there at USC.
09:12Mike, fabulous stuff today.
09:14Enjoy the rest of your week and all the games this weekend.