Who says we can't write about basketball on OTE? With Spring Practice not quite heating up yet and some excellent storylines to be discussed, I wanted to ponder a little bit of media/reality disconnect I've been seeing regarding the B1G's basketball conferences.

Early this month, I read a few articles claiming the B1G is the best conference in college basketball. I was a tad surprised, well more than a tad surprised, because after watching a ton of games this year, I felt like the B1G wasn't that strong a conference. Sure we have tenacious Michigan, peaking Michigan State, and uber-talented OSU. But beyond them, very few teams strike me as dangerous or even Tourney worthy. These teams just don't pass the "do they look like an NCAA team" test. The conference as a whole plays defense well, which is important and half the battle, but...Illinois? Dead in the water. Purdue? Limping. Wisconsin? Cannot score the basketball.

My fears were confirmed today when "the best conference in the NCAA" was given only three locks for the NCAA Tourney by the SI Bubble Watch expert. Indiana and Wisconsin are "probably in", but not locks, according to this expert. The other possible four teams (Purdue, NW, Illinois, Minnesota) are closer to not making the Tourney...than to making it.

So what did we learn here?

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For the past few weeks, I have been immersing myself in data. I am not an analyst by trade, but I am extremely fascinated by what information can tell us and I am also a little obsessive when I begin researching something I find interesting. And so when the OTE team decided to work on assessing the State of the B1G, I knew that I wanted to tackle the issue of "National Competitiveness." This was twofold:

1) Let's be honest, I'm still the new guy to the group and I felt like I could provide as non-biased an approach to the conference as a whole as possible (insert inability to be unbiased jokes here)

-and-

2) I had always revered the B1G as the premier conference in football, but with obvious hate getting thrown around by major media post-bowls for the past two seasons, I wanted to dig into the pieces that really make the B1G 'competitive'

After trying to come up with some legitimate parameters and failing miserably, I started researching everything from bowl records to rankings, net worth to attendance, and most anything on education I could find. The results? A aforementioned ridiculous amount of data that had to be parsed into consumable bites because no website wants to make this task easy.

What we are left with is a 3 part Series on The State of the B1G 2012: National Competitiveness. This first piece focuses solely on the B1G's current state of On the Field Competitiveness and will dive into what numbers say from a Rankings, Bowl Record, and National Championship (or lack thereof) view. Spoiler alert: It's pretty much what you expect. The second piece will dive into the B1G's competitiveness nationally as it pertains to Fans in the Stands and Net Worth. After all, this is all a money game, right? Finally, we're going to look at the one competition B1G fans think they rule - education. I mean, these are still student-athletes, right? We'll look at NCAA APR, Graduation Rates, and School Rankings and I'll try to make sense of it all. These three pieces will give a good snapshot of how the B1G compares to its national brothers and hopefully make sense of the conversation, "My conference can beat up your conference." So, that's the plan. On to the breakdown!

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Welcome to OTE's State of the B1G 2012, where we will be examining the B1G conference from as many angles as the twisted minds of our crack staff of writers can muster up.

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One of the most discussed topics over the last year and a half or so has been college football expansion. Remember, this all started because B1G Commissioner Big Jim Delany said he thought the B1G might be considering, at some point in the future, possibly, maybe, expanding to a 12th team.

All Hell ensued, at the maelstrom is still continuing to this day.

The Big XII conference appeared to be going the way of the USFL, the SEC was looking at 4 to 6 teams, depending on which rumors you chose to believe, and the B1G and PAC-10 were rumored to be wooing Texas and triggering, along with the SEC, the college football equivalent of Armageddon--16 team super-conferences that would envelop and swallow the Big XII and Big East whole, muahahahaha.

All because Jim Delany farted the word 'expansion'.

So where are we in terms of conference expansion, where are other conferences, and what teams should...or what teams must..the B1G go after to stay at the forefront of this rapidly changing landscape?

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Welcome to OTE's State of the B1G 2012, where we will be examining the B1G conference from as many angles as the twisted minds of our crack staff of writers can muster up.

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Today we take a look at the bottom 1/3 of the conference to examine the state of what we will refer to as the B1G's lesser class. For the purposes of this piece we will look at the state of the four teams that finished 2011 with the worst conference records: Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota and Northwestern. While Ohio State finished with the same conference record as NWestern, I don't think anyone would put them in the lesser class of the B1G, so we're leaving them out.

The Recent Past

If you were picking a veritable murderers row of the B1G's lesser class, you'd do pretty well by coming up with this group. Only Purdue might round out the discussion, but they found their way to a .500 conference record last season, so they are spared association with this group for now.

At the very bottom is Indiana, a team that managed zero conference win and just one win overall in 2011, beating South Carolina State. Indiana is a team that made a nice hire in Kevin Wilson before the 2011 season, but it certainly didn't translate to the field in his first year. Indiana was the laughing stock of the B1G, and for that Gopher and Illini fans across B1G country thank them.

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Place: Big Ten Headquarters, Park Ridge, Ill. It is the dark of winter, and the wind is howling off of Lake Michigan. It is as cold and lifeless as Michael Jackson, and Commissioner Delany finds himself in a foul mood. Wisconsin AD Barry Alvarez has requested a meeting on some irregularities, and Big Jim has called a meeting* to make sure everyone leaves his office on the same page.

*Just so we're clear--this in no way represents anyone, except what the twisted recesses of my brain conjured up as my best case scenario in the upcoming meeting between Alvarez and Delany.

Barry, this had better be good. Because if this is another plea to go halfsies on the buy one, get one free Hans Weidemann Groupon, I'm throwing you out of my office, and you'll never come back.

Well, Jim, this is very important. It concerns recruiting here in the B1G.

Yes, recruiting. As in, something almost no one in our conference is doing?

Well, there's a reason that no one can recruit in our conference, and it deals with fairness. Bret would like to discuss why.

ORLY? Mr. 'let's hang 80 on the Hoosiers' has a problem with fairness? Heh, this oughta be good.

//pops collar like total douchebag

Jimmy, my man! Double fist bump up top, yo.

Double fist your own ass, yo. Get that shit outta here and sit down.

//left hangin', sits down, still frat boy douchey

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What a day, right? I assume that many of you have been following the lives of 17 and 18 year old kids today, which on any other day would be absolutely strange... And as our friends at BHGP say, "Caring is Creepy." Still, one of the things we like to do at OTE is try and give everyone a spot to gloat taunt discuss current B1G football events with other fans. Let's go ahead and consider this your official, "OTE Nighttime NLOI Recap Open Thread." You know, because nothing's more ridiculous than going home after work and discussing the muscular builds of teenagers on the internet, right?

The way I see it, as a conference, the B1G got worked by the national rankings outside of both Ohio State and Michigan finishing in the Top 10. I do not subscribe to the major rankings websites because a) let's be honest, it really is weird to obsess about teenagers who may or may not be on the playing field ever, and b) I'm cheap... Here are the rankings I could find (subject to change by the time this thing publishes) (no whining):

Note: All numbers are from the interweb. Links are Rivals, Scout, and 24/7.

Rivals did not rank Northwestern, Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, or Illinois in their top 50, and from what I could find out, I cannot access those without paying money. Again, if you really want to know what they are, you probably are a fan of said team and could inform me in the comments. I did find Rival's overall conference rankings and they seem to just drop Wisconsin and move everyone up a bit. Surprisingly, they also seem to be the only group that does not see Illinois as the worst class of all.

In the squishy middle, you have Nebraska, MSU, Iowa, PSU, Purdue, and Northwestern all kind of being the same team. While the composite overall rankings vary over 20 positions, those teams all seem to kind of get ranked around the same area. Interestingly, outside of OSU and Michigan, there are no consensus conference ranks among the three major outlets. That seemed a bit odd to me, but I'm sure a lot has to do with quantity versus quality. Anyhow, that's all the analysis you get from me today. On to the comments for more conversations and feel free to let us all know what you think of your team's success. Happy NLOI Day!!!

What is old becomes new, and players from all over the country pledge their allegiance for the next four years to schools to play the game of football. In the B1G, this past year has been Michigan lapping the field on everyone...until one Urban F. Meyer grabbed the controls of an OSU program that looked to be in a recruiting death spiral.

Meyer closed the gap on and then passed Hoke and Michigan in every major recruiting service rankings, mostly by grabbing guys that had committed to other programs, and he isn't stopping. If I'm reading the tea leaves right, OSU has the biggest chance at a 'signing day surprise', which is nothing like an 'October Surprise'.

But I could be way off on that.

What are some storylines around the conference as letters of intent roll in? I know Jerry Kill at Minnesota has done a good job of repairing relationships Tim Brewster damaged with high school coaches around the state, and has nailed down all but two of the top 10 in-state recruits. The bad news is that Minnesota has about as much football talent as New Zealand has hockey talent, but it's a start. Over in Madison, Bret Bielema is struggling to bring home a good class thanks to a lot of offensive coach defections to Pittsburgh when Paul Chryst took that job. And Illinois coach Tim Beckman will have a lot of hustling to do to match former coach Ron Zook's recruiting prowess. The good news is he could probably roll out of bed hungover and outcoach him, so the Illini have that going for them, which is nice.

Purdue is looking for players that have already had their ACL's operated on; it saves money on surgery and rehab. Northwestern grabbed top recruit LB Ifeadi Odenigbo, which was surprising. At least until we found out Notre Dame was one of his final schools. I mean seriously, who wants to play for a guy like Brian Kelly? Well, Gunner Kiel does. He started out committing to Indiana, then put on an LSU hat for a cup of coffee, then went to Notre Dame. Oh, you wacky teenagers. As for Indiana, they are ranked higher than Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, and Nebraska, of all teams. Kind of surprising, but good for Kevin Wilson. And bad for Nebraska. WTF, Bo? Step it up.

As for the rest of the conference, Iowa won a battle for OL Alex Kozan over Michigan, which was kind of surprising...if you ask Michigan fans. Michigan State is kind of butthurt that Urban Meyer won't leave their recruits leave Brittany alone, and Bill O'Brien is still getting ready for the Super Bowl...which is having a detrimental effect on his first recruiting class.

So use this open thread to report all signings, surprises, and last minute switches, or just general recruiting talk. When things cool down, we'll have a recap on the day's events, and in a few days we'll do a final analysis on how badly Urban Meyer kicked everyone's ass who 'won' and who 'lost'. For now, here's exclusive video footage of a Bret Bielema recruiting pitch:

Hmm, maybe that's why they're having problems bringing talent in this year. Happy NLOI Day, everyone!

Well, yeah, of course it is. I mean, you have to have talent to be able to win, I get that. But I just think this whole recruiting ranking system seems kind of flawed.

First off, an admission. I am not a recruiting junkie. I kinda sorta follow it, and as an OSU fan, it's been impossible to ignore what Urban Meyer has done on the recruiting trail in his first two months on the job. But I don't watch the high school all star games, I don't know who the top rated players are at each position unless OSU is one of the schools a kid is interested in, and I don't know who's going where on official or unofficial visits.

I don't even really know the difference between an official and unofficial visit. And I'm at the point in my life where I really don't care if I ever know.

And honestly, I kind of look at these class rankings along the lines of grading an NFL draft about five minutes after the draft has ended. It seems kind of pointless, but it's become a big deal in the last 9 or 10 years.

So I figured we needed to chat about recruiting, and if the numbers really mean anything at the end of the day.

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