Tag / UCLA

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2025-2026 Final Standings

Purdue’s men’s basketball season came to an end on Sunday, falling to Arizona in the Elite Eight.  It was a disappointing, but appropriate, end for a team ranked #1 in the pre-season and expected to compete for a national title but struggled throughout the conference schedule.  While home tickets remained hard to come by this season, I did manage to see six games in five arenas across four states, thanks to a January trip out west to California, a Valentine’s Day visit to Iowa City, and the Big Ten Tournament here at the United Center, tied for the greatest number of games I’ve attended in a single season while adding both the Galen Center and Pauley Pavilion to my collection.

2026 Team Records – Men

TeamName Won Loss Winning Pctg
UCLA Bruins 1 0 1.000
Purdue Boilermakers 5 1 0.833
USC Trojans 0 1 0.000
Penn State Nittany Lions 0 1 0.000
Northwestern Wildcats 0 1 0.000
Nebraska Cornhuskers 0 1 0.000
Iowa Hawkeyes 0 1 0.000
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Put On Your Dancing Shoes

The nation’s attention turns to the college hoops scene for the next few weeks as the NCAA tournament kicks off later today.  I’m not in any pools this year, so most of these selections have no ultimate bearing on my life, aside from personal pride.  With the Final Four and the Championship taking place just down the road in Indianapolis, I may have to expend a not-insignificant amount of money should a certain school from West Lafayette manage to make it that far.  So, without further ado, let’s take a look at this year’s selections.

Maybe it is personal bias, but I am expecting big things from the two Big Ten teams in this bracket, including one making their way to the Final Four.

Purdue followed up a disappointing end to the regular season with a spirited run through the Big Ten Tournament to capture the championship.  Are they fixed?  Well, I hope so since I have them coming out of this region and heading to Indy. Continue reading →

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Braden Watch

Braden Smith moved closer to capturing the NCAA’s career assists record, adding another 9 in yesterday’s victory over UCLA in the semifinals of the Big Ten Tournament.  Smith is now just 12 assists away from tying Duke’s Bobby Hurley’s record of 1,076.  At his current pace of 9 assists per game, Smith would need Purdue to play just two more games between the Big Ten Tournament and the NCAA Tournament in order to best Hurley, and both of those games are now guaranteed.

1,076 – Bobby Hurley
1,064 – Braden Smith

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Fitbit 12 – Week 1

Year twelve on the Fitbit platform gets off to a good start, thanks to a well-timed trip to southern California.  The week got off to a decent start on Sunday, where breakfast out and finding a charger for the rental car left me 35 steps shy of 6600, with some additional effort of an afternoon swim not included.  A trip to the beach followed by a tour of Sony Pictures Studios on Monday put me above goal with 8000 steps.  Tuesday was even better, jumping up to 8500 steps thanks to a tour of Dodger Stadium followed by a trip to Pauley Pavilion to see UCLA steal a victory against Purdue.  The trip to LAX for the flight back home on Wednesday left me with 5200 steps.  Returning to work, and getting a bit of rest, on Thursday led to a big drop, coming in with 3900 steps.  Bitter cold temperatures on Friday kept me inside all day, leading to 4300 steps.  The low point of the week came on Saturday, where the ongoing polar vortex left me 31 steps shy of 3700

Total steps: 40,230

Daily average: 5747.1

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Let’s Try This Again

This past June, the Big Ten introduced their “Flex Protect Plus” model, integrating USC and UCLA into the football schedule and having each school play nine conference games each season, facing every other conference opponent at least twice, home and away, in a four-year period.  That lasted about two months before it was announced that Washington and Oregon would also be joining the conference, sending planners back to the drawing board.

Last week, the conference announced their updated “Flex Protect XVIII” model, which, again, features protected rivalry opponents that will be played on an annual basis while ensuring schools will play every other conference school at least twice, home and away, but no more than three times in a five-year period.  The Big Ten Championship game will feature the top two teams in the conference standings, with tie breakers still to be determined.

So, once again, what does this mean for Purdue?  First off, they will continue to have two protected rivalries to be played every season: Illinois and, of course, Indiana.  The revised schedule now has them hosting Oregon in 2024, facing USC at home and Washington on the road in 2025, hosting Washington and travelling to UCLA in 2026, their first appearance in Pasadena since the 2001 Rose Bowl, facing UCLA at home and Oregon on the road in 2027, and, finally, travelling to Los Angeles to face USC in 2028.

Will we actually get through all five seasons before the next round of conference musical chairs takes place?  It seems unlikely, but this is the plan in place for now.  With Danny poised to graduate this spring, this will give me some motivation to continue going to the occasional game to see new opponents.

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The Big 18

Not even two months since the Big Ten announced their “Flex Protect Plus” model, which incorporated UCLA and USC into the football schedule for 2024 and beyond, it’s time to go back to the drawing board.  The conference grew again yesterday when Oregon and Washington, formerly of the PAC-12, would join the conference starting with the fall 2024 semester.  The move further extends the reach of the Big Ten on the West Coast.
On the field, the move gives the Big Ten additional content to sell to their media rights providers and an additional footprint in the west to help cut down on the travel requirements for student athletes.  Off the field, the Big Ten Network will get the opportunity to expand into multiple markets in the Pacific Northwest.  Meanwhile, the PAC-12, who also lost Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah to the Big 12 this week, looks to be on the verge of collapse, with only four schools remaining as of now for the 2024-2025 school year.

With the 2023 college football season about to start in about a month, the schedule-makers will need to revamp their approach to account for the new schools.  Do they simply add Oregon and Washington into the mix?  Split the 18 schools into three divisions of six teams each?  Two divisions of nine?  I imagine we will find out sooner rather than later while waiting for the next pair of dominos to drop.

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Future Football On The West Coast

The Big Ten dropped their 2024 and 2025 football schedules yesterday, the first to include UCLA and USC.  With sixteen teams, the conference is abandoning its divisional format and moving to a “Flex Protect Plus” model, where each school will play nine conference games each season and will play every other conference opponent at least twice, home and away, in a four-year period.  In addition, there are eleven protected matchups that will be played annually, featuring a combination of historic and geographic rivalries along with trophy games.  The Big Ten Championship game will feature the top two teams in the conference standings, with tie breakers to be determined.

So, what does this mean for Purdue?  First off, they will have two protected rivalries to be played every season: Illinois and, of course, Indiana.  They will face USC at home in 2024, their first visit to West Lafayette since 1976.  UCLA makes their first appearance on the schedule in 2025, where Purdue will make their first appearance in Los Angeles since the 2001 Rose Bowl.  Over the course of the two seasons, Purdue will play every other Big Ten team at least once.

Unfortunately, Danny will be out of school before any of this takes effect.  Maybe we can look at that 2025 UCLA trip as a chance to meet up.  I know of a pretty good breakfast place that I think he would like.

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How Sweet It Is

The Sweet Sixteen kicks off today following an opening weekend with upsets galore, completely wrecking my bracket.  Half of my Final Four was wiped out, including my champion.  Ugh.

This region is a wreck, with only one team remaining in the Sweet Sixteen, and that team I had losing in this round, so this one was a dud.

Things look much better on this side of the bracket, as the only Sweet Sixteen team I had that didn’t make it is IU and, honestly, I’m ok with that.

Continue reading →

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It’s Time To Go Dancing

The nation’s attention turns to the college hoops scene for the next few weeks as the NCAA tournament kicks off later today.  I’m not in any pools this year, so most of these selections have no ultimate bearing on my life, aside from personal pride.  I do happen to have a hotel room booked for Houston for Final Four weekend just in case, so fingers crossed.  So, without further ado, let’s take a look at this year’s selections.

Alabama enters the tournament under a cloud of scandal, as their star player was recently involved in the murder of a young woman.  Because of that, I have second seed Arizona going to the Final Four.

Fun fact: the first college basketball game I ever attended was Purdue versus Houston at Market Square Arena back in 1993.  Both teams are top seeds in this tournament.  It pains me to have Indiana going as far as I do, but they were a formidable opponent this year, so I see them giving the field a run for their money.  In the end, though, I have Xavier going on to Houston.

Continue reading →

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The Big 16

Ten years after their last expansion that left the Big Ten Conference with fourteen teams, the league grew again this week when news broke that USC and UCLA, formerly of the PAC-12, would join the conference on August 1, 2024.  The move extends the reach of the Big Ten from the Atlantic to the Pacific and follows the expansion of the SEC last year by adding Texas and Oklahoma.

For the Big Ten, the benefits are obvious.  First, in keeping up with the SEC, they show they are serious about competing for championships in a future of super-conferences.  Adding traditional powerhouses in high revenue sports, USC for football and UCLA for basketball, also gives the conference an added boost in media rights, with their next deal expected to surpass $1 billion.  Another bonus, and huge revenue generator, is the opportunity to expand the reach of the Big Ten Network into southern California and the nation’s second-largest market.

For USC and UCLA, the benefit is mostly money.  In 2019, the last pre-pandemic season, the PAC-12 dispersed approximately $33.58 million to its member schools.  The Big Ten schools, however, took in $54.29 million.  By the end of this decade, that number is expected to be $100 million.  In that regard, the PAC-12 just could not keep up.

The downsides for both sides include increased travel times and costs, though that is expected to hit the two Los Angeles-based schools harder as they will have more frequent travel to the far reaches of the conference.  With the additional time comes increased time missed in the classroom, which will impact the non-revenue generating sports harder.  The biggest loser in this agreement may end up being the Rose Bowl, the traditional New Year’s Day meeting ground between the Big Ten and the PAC-12.

Logistically, this means Purdue will most likely move to the East division in football, helping to maintain their yearly battles against Indiana but also ensuring more games against Michigan and Ohio State, making their road to a bowl game more difficult.  Sixteen teams may also force the introduction of divisions into the basketball ranks as well.

Is this the end?  It seems unlikely, as this move will cause ripples throughout the NCAA.  With more consolidation into fewer elite conferences, good schools in the remaining conferences, like the rest of the PAC-12 and the ACC, for example, may start looking for new landing spots.  Notre Dame may see that, with many of their traditional rivals now located in one conference, their desire to stay independent will start to wane.  Only time will tell where this eventually ends up.