Dick Weiss on College Basketball
Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said his conference has been in talks with the Garden about playing its men’s conference tournament there again. He even went as far as to suggest the Big Ten wanted to play in the Big East’s time slot on off years when the tournament is held outside Chicago and Indianapolis.
“We talked about the Garden in the future,” he told the media at the Big Ten’s annual media day in Chicago. “We’ve presented them with a powerful, promotional plan that we think, along with the other conferences, if you can elevate Madison Garden, we think we can elevate it to the next level with regard to college basketball post season competition. We’ll see where it goes.”
There is only problem with Delany’s plan. The Big East has that week locked up through 2026.
When the Big Ten showed up at the Garden last year, it was forced to play a week before conference championship week, which displeased the coaches because it forced the regular season schedule to start in December and took the league off center stage.
Delany said the league was not going to be able to play early in the future but if we can find a regular date, that will be something the conference would try to achieve.
The Big Ten, which leads the country in regular-season home attendance each season, sold out one of seven sessions at the Garden and averaged 15,200 fans in the 19,000-seat Manhattan Arena. The Big East sold out three of five sessions and averaged 18,790– the most of any conference in the country. That success and the fact the Big East has been played at the Garden since 1983 should be enough for the Big East to hold on to its spot at the so-called Mecca of college basketball.
