An Ode to the Big Ten-ACC Challenge

Indiana has managed to put together a competitive non-conference schedule for the 2023-24 season, but there will be one noticeable absence: The Big-Ten ACC Challenge.

In the midst of losing its Big Ten TV rights, ESPN announced last year that it would be discontinuing the annual event in favor of a new ACC-SEC challenge, slated to begin this year. With the future of the ACC somewhat up in the air, it’s hard to say how long this new event will last.

Losing one basketball game from the yearly schedule isn’t the biggest deal in the broader context of the college athletics landscape, where conferences with decades of history are being dissolved for slightly bigger TV deals. That doesn’t mean I…