A few schools in the expanded Big Ten will have to sit home and watch the 2025 basketball tournament.
National college basketball reporter Jon Rothstein announced via sources the league will keep the current 20-game regular season imbalanced schedule format, but the postseason Big Ten Tournament will only include 15 of the 18 teams.
USC, UCLA, Washington and Oregon will all join the Big Ten in July to bring the conference to 18 schools.
The Big Ten hasn’t had a true round robin format since Penn State joined the league in 1992-93. With 18 teams and 20 games, if the league keeps the current scheduling format teams will only play three opponents twice and will have single-plays with the other 14 schools.
Presumably Indiana will keep playing home-and-home against Purdue each season, although the league has done away with that rivalry double-play in the past when it modified the format.
Rothstein says the Big Ten will make a formal announcement with further details soon.