The Big Ten has officially announced that all men’s basketball programs will play 20 conference games in 2018-19 at Big Ten Media Day in New York City. Big Ten teams will now play seven teams twice and six teams once in the regular season. Northwestern is also guaranteed play Illinois twice every year as one of three in-state protected rivalry. Women’s basketball will also expand from 16 conference games to 18 games.
The conference, clearly, is looking to reduce the number of non-conference games and increase the level of competition and get ahead of the tide of conferences scheduling more games.