This year’s Big Ten has got to be the most entertaining basketball conference in years — and, perhaps, the best conference as well.
Over the past few days, the top three teams in the conference — Indiana, Michigan State, and Michigan — all have lost. Ohio State’s victory over Michigan State on Sunday wasn’t that much of an upset, but Minnesota’s win over top-ranked Indiana last night was a real surprise, and Penn State’s victory tonight over Michigan, in a game in which Michigan frittered away a double-digit lead, is an absolute shocker. Before that game, Penn State hadn’t won a conference game all year. As a result of the upsets, Indiana leads the conference race with three losses, Michigan State and steady Wisconsin are right behind with four losses, and Ohio State and stumbling Michigan are one game farther back.
College basketball is a lot of fun because the players are kids, the students watching the game are into it, and emotion can play a significant role. When a conference has have a bunch of very good teams, some good teams, and some teams that can rise to the occasion when their home court advantage comes into play, you get lots of surprises and unexpectedly close games. The last few games of the conference regular season over the next week and a half are likely to be a free-for-all. If a team like Ohio State wants to stay in contention, it had better be ready to play every game against every opponent — starting tomorrow night, when it travels to Evanston to play Northwestern.
After the regular season finally ends, we’ll have the Big Ten Tournament. There’s a reason why this year’s tournament is the first one ever to be sold out: it should be a very good show.
The results of pre-conference play were not kind to the teams in the Old Conference. Michigan got pulverized by Alabama and then played badly in a loss to Notre Dame. Wisconsin lost to Oregon State and has struggled mightily against mediocre teams like Utah State and UNLV. Pre-season favorites Michigan State and Nebraska have fallen from the ranks of the unbeaten, with the Spartans getting pounded by Notre Dame and the Cornhuskers dropping a winnable game to UCLA. Iowa, Penn State, and Illinois already have two defeats. Minnesota is undefeated, but hasn’t played anybody. The best team in the conference could be Northwestern, which has knocked off Syracuse, Vanderbilt, and Boston College.
For starters, Penn State will have to pay a $60 million fine — representing one year of revenue from its football program — to external programs aimed at preventing child sexual abuse or helping the victims of such abuse. The NCAA also barred Penn State’s football program from bowl games for five years, cut Penn State’s available scholarships for four years, and vacated all of Penn State’s many football wins since 1998. The latter penalty means that Joe Paterno will not be officially recognized as the winningest coach in college football history.
Sometimes I wonder if America has become a land of enablers. How often do you hear people respond to news of failures by others by making excuses or attacking the person who delivers the news? Whether the fault lies with their children, their chosen political candidates, or the school or church they support, people are often much too willing to condone or cover up misdeeds. It’s as if the enabler’s identity becomes so wrapped up with the politician, or school, that they simply cannot accept the possibility of failure — and therefore the blame inevitably must lie elsewhere.
In prepared statement, Freeh said: “Our most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims by the most senior leaders at Penn State. The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized.” Instead, Freeh states, former Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley and former head football coach Joe Paterno, upon learning of the infamous incident involving Sandusky and a young boy in a shower, concealed facts, consciously decided not to report Sandusky’s conduct to authorities, and made no attempt to even identify — much less help — the young boy who was the victim of Sandusky’s depredation. The report also implicates Penn State’s former president, who was ousted in the wake of the scandal, and the University’s Board of Trustees. According to the CNN article linked above, however, none of the Board’s 32 trustees plans to resign, notwithstanding their failure to exercise the oversight that is the reason for the Board’s existence in the first place.
Many people will focus on the game at East Lansing, where Ohio State seeks revenge for the Spartans’ win last month. The Buckeyes’ dreadful showing in that contest triggered several inconsistent performances that have tested Ohio State’s mettle and raised questions about its NCAA Tournament hopes. A win against a top 10 team, coached by legendary Tom Izzo, in a brutal venue — and on Michigan State’s senior day, to boot — would answer those questions. Ohio State will need to shoot a lot better and rebound a lot better if they hope to do so.
The stories aren’t so pretty at the bottom of the conference. Minnesota’s season has been crippled by injuries, but Illinois has experienced an outright collapse that probably will result in the ouster of coach Bruce Weber. The Illini are baffling because they have one of the best big men in the conference in Meyers Leonard and a great scorer in Brandon Paul, but they play poor defense and lack the leadership and chemistry needed to win consistently. Nebraska’s coach, too, is likely on the chopping block; the Cornhuskers look to be far away from being competitive in the conference. And Penn State, which has a new coach this year, always seems to be rebuilding, but never quite getting to the top.
Paterno was a legendary coach who took the Penn State program to the pinnacle of college football, but his legacy will be forever tarnished by the alleged child sex abuse scandal involving long-time assistant Jerry Sandusky — and by Paterno’s apparent failure to respond appropriately to reports about Sandusky’s conduct.
Penn State is at the center of a scandal that has given the school a terrible black eye. The University can’t change the past, but it can try to avoid compounding the problem. When students riot because a football coach, no matter how legendary, was sacked as part of a general housecleaning in the wake of a dreadful child sex-abuse scandal, they display a gross lack of sensitivity to the core issues and to the alleged victims of the abuse — a lack of sensitivity that some might conclude contributed to the environment that allowed the scandalous behavior to occur, and endure, in the first place.
Of course, the allegations of Sandusky’s wrongful interactions with underage boys are just that — allegations that have not been proven in a court of law. However, what seems to be undisputed is that various Penn State officials were told of the alleged misconduct and nevertheless failed to report that information to the police so that the matter could be properly investigated. This inexplicable inaction was the crucial and unforgivable failure. By not alerting the appropriate authorities, the Penn State officials effectively assumed the role of investigator, prosecutor, judge, and jury and eliminated any chance that the criminal justice system could work as intended. I have yet to read any rational, sensible explanation for this awful failure — and I frankly cannot imagine that any such explanation exists.
In the “Legends” division, Michigan State leads at 4-1, with Michigan, Nebraska, and Iowa right behind at 3-2. Yesterday’s games made the division race a lot more interesting, with Northwestern gutting out a shocking win at Nebraska and Iowa toppling Michigan. All of the leaders in the Legends division (pun intended) have tough games remaining; Michigan State must play Iowa and Northwestern; Nebraska plays Iowa, Michigan, and Penn State; Iowa has Michigan State and Nebraska; and Michigan still has Illinois, Nebraska and the Buckeyes. The eventual winner of this division is anybody’s guess.
In the “Leaders” division, Penn State leads the way. The Nittany Lions are undefeated in the Big Ten and have only one loss overall, but they aren’t getting much respect — largely because the general perception is that the team hasn’t played many tough games. That will change straightaway, as Penn State must close with Nebraska at home and then Ohio State and Wisconsin on the road. Ohio State and Wisconsin are 3-2, and both will be rooting for the other to knock off the Nittany Lions — but then lose another game, besides.
Yesterday, after Ohio State had beaten Penn State in the Big Ten Tournament championship game, and after both teams had learned that they were in the NCAA Tournament, 
