B1G in London 2012

The Olympics ended today, and with it our chance to watch high-level table tennis and handball on cable TV for the foreseeable future. That's the bad news. The good news is that we can use the Olympics as another barometer to compare our beloved and behated Big Ten teams. I tracked former and current B1G athletes based on this list from the Big Ten site. Michael Phelps is listed as a Wolverine, because he was a volunteer assistant at some point. I am not going to count Phelps for Michigan; that would be ridiculous. Let's get to the medal count!

Total Medals is self-explanatory. Weighted Total makes a Gold worth 3, Silver 2 and Bronze 1. In team sports, if a school had more than one member on a medal-winning team, they get credited for each player on the team.

	GOLD	SILVER	BRONZE	TOTAL MEDALS	WEIGHTED TOTAL
Penn State	0	4	3	7	11
Minnesota	2	2	0	4	10
Michigan	2	1	1	4	9
Nebraska	1	1	2	4	7
Purdue	1	0	2	3	5
Northwestern	2	0	0	2	6
Illinois	1	0	1	2	4
Indiana	0	0	1	1	1
Iowa	0	0	0	0	0
Michigan State	0	0	0	0	0
Ohio State	0	0	0	0	0
Wisconsin	0	0	0	0	0
Conference Totals	9	8	10	27	53

Click on for a listing of all of the medalists, some stats and an alternate medal count.

Medal Breakdown

Penn State

SILVER
Nicole Fawcett, Alisha Glass, Christa Harmotto, Megan Hodge - USA Women's Volleyball

BRONZE
Natalie Dell - USA Women's Rowing: Quad Sculls w/o Coxswain
Erin McLeod, Carmelina Moscato - Canada Women's Soccer

Minnesota

GOLD
Lindsay Whalen - USA Women's Basketball
Barbora Spotakova - Czech Republic Women's Javelin

SILVER
Kelci Bryant - USA Women's Diving: 3m Synchronized Springboard
Lindsey Berg - USA Women's Volleyball

Michigan

GOLD
Tyler Clary - USA Men's Swimming: 200m Backstroke
Betsey Armstrong - USA Women's Water Polo

SILVER
Janine Hanson - Canada Women's Rowing: Eight w/Coxswain

BRONZE
Peter Vanderkaay - USA Men's Swimming: 400m Freestyle

Nebraska

GOLD
Jordan Burroughs- USA Men's Wrestling: 74 kg Freestyle

SILVER
Jordan Larson - USA Women's Volleyball

BRONZE
Karina Leblanc, Brittany Timko - Canada Women's Soccer

Purdue

GOLD
David Boudia - USA Men's Diving: 10m Platform

BRONZE
Lauren Sesselmann - Canada Women's Soccer
David Boudia - USA Men's Diving: Synchronized 10m Platform

Northwestern

GOLD
Matt Grevers - USA Men's Swimming: 100m Backstroke, 4x100m Medley Relay

Illinois

GOLD
Deron Williams - USA Men's Basketball

BRONZE
Emily Zurrer - Canada Women's Soccer

Indiana

BRONZE
Derek Drouin - Canada Men's High Jump

(I think this list is correct, but if I missed something, please let me know in the comments.)

Medalist Notes:
The following swimmers participated in preliminary relay rounds for teams that went on to medal in the event. They didn't participate in the finals (where the medal was actually won), so I did not include them in the medal count.

Margaux Farrell, Indiana - France 4x200m Freestyle, Bronze
Charlie Houchin, Michigan - USA 4x200m Freestyle, Gold
Davis Tarwater, Michigan - USA 4x200m Freestyle, Gold
Matt Grevers, Northwestern - USA 4x100m Freestyle, Silver

Alternate Medal Count

Some might consider it unfair that Penn State won the medal count based almost entirely on having four members of the Women's Volleyball team. If we only give credit for one medal for having any participants on a team that medals, here is the count:

	GOLD	SILVER	BRONZE	TOTAL MEDALS	WEIGHTED TOTAL
Minnesota	2	2	0	4	10
Michigan	2	1	1	4	9
Nebraska	1	1	1	3	6
Purdue	1	0	2	3	5
Penn State	0	1	2	3	4
Northwestern	2	0	0	2	6
Illinois	1	0	1	2	4
Indiana	0	0	1	1	1
Iowa	0	0	0	0	0
Michigan State	0	0	0	0	0
Ohio State	0	0	0	0	0
Wisconsin	0	0	0	0	0
Conference Totals	9	5	8	22	45

Participant Stats

	Athletes	% on International Teams	% of Medaling Athletes
Michigan	19	47	21
Penn State	18	44	39
Nebraska	14	71	29
Ohio State	11	73	0
Wisconsin	9	33	0
Indiana	7	29	14
Illinois	6	67	33
Iowa	5	80	0
Minnesota	5	60	80
Purdue	4	50	50
Northwestern	2	0	50
Michigan State	1	100	0
Conference Totals	101	53	25

Miscellany

• Most Purdue thing from London 2012: Kara Patterson only made one attempt at the Javelin throw in London, because she tore her ACL during the Olympic Trials.
• Least Purdue thing from London 2012: After finishing 18th in the preliminaries (barely making it to the semi-finals), David Boudia was clutch in the finals. He performed the highest-scoring dive of the competition in the last round to secure the gold.
• THE Ohio State University fared the poorest of all conference schools relative to their number of participants. Michigan State fared the poorest in terms of actually getting athletes to qualify for the games.
• Without the Canadian Women's Soccer Team (6 bronzes) and the USA Women's Volleyball Team (6 silvers), the medal count for the Big Ten wouldn't be as impressive.
• Out of all the Track and Field Events, the conference managed just two medals.
• There were two Olympic Records set by Big Tenners, both in swimming: Northwestern's Matt Grevers in the 100m Backstroke and Michigan's Tyler Clary in the 200m Backstroke. They might want to make the Backstroke events in Rio a Legends Division-only competition.
• THE U-S-A! U-S-A! Award goes to Northwestern, whose only two competitors were both playing for the Stars and Stripes. The two gold medals that Matt Grevers earned should make all Americans proud of Northwestern
• Minnesota wins the coveted School of the Olympics Award for not wasting time with bronze medals and an astonishing 80% medal rate.

What were your favorite moments from the Olympics (bonus points if they are B1G-related)? How excited is everyone for the return of the Winter Games (and therefore the return of Curling) in 2014?