Hey, hey, where you been, but got talk is about to begin, hey, hey, hey, come on in.

Welcome back to your Tuesday book. I talk from Clevver.com, it's Doug Lamaries, and I have one thing I want to share with you today, and this is a subject that when I was covering a highest date by myself for the Cleveland playing dealer, which I started doing in 2005, and I continued doing it that way until 2013, and then we added more people to the beat, I would go right from football season to basketball season. And I very vividly remember in that time period, thinking to myself, the big 10 is a basketball conference.

And I didn't know if I thought that was great. I didn't know if that's what I thought it should be, but it definitely is what I thought it was. Because the strength of the big 10 back then, the football strength was so consolidated in Ohio State. And it felt like you guys know this. This is not a new topic of discussion. That stretched there. Basically, most of the Tressel era, where it felt like other than oh six, it's like, don't worry about it.

Nobody can hang. Nobody can hang with Ohio State in this league, especially as Michigan football was going through its dull drums and then Penn State ran into all that craziness and all the transition from Joe Paterno, and you know, you're looking at, hey, who's Ohio State's rival in the big 10 for football? And it's Wisconsin. It's like, oh, Wisconsin, Brett Bielin, he's a good villain. They bury Alvarez, like bury Alvarez beat Ohio State a couple of times. Brett Bielin beat him once, right?

Well, Ohio State football was so dominant, but in basketball, it was spread out. So I thought the strength was similar, but it was consolidated in football, and it was spread out in basketball. And that is not the case anymore. This is absolutely a football conference. And so what I'm going to talk about on this podcast today, I wrote a companion piece for this at Cleveland.com slash OSU is the failings of big 10 basketball coupled with the clear rise of big 10 football. And I don't think this is the case.

It was going away. So that's first look at this time period of like why I thought this. This is the kind of thing, man. Before I had a podcast, you know what I just did. I just thought this stuff in my own head, driving around.

I had nobody else on the beat. I had no microphone. I don't podcast exist. I had no microphone. And I just thought this stuff.

I wrote back that I wrote a lot. And I would write this stuff. So in that time period, it's amazing to me. As we know, the last big 10 basketball title was Michigan State in 2000.

The last one before that was Michigan in 1989. So since 1990, the only four titles in men's basketball or football for the big 10 or Michigan football the split title of 97 Michigan State in 2000.

And Ohio State football in 2002 in 2014. It's not great. Four titles in football, the men's basketball in 30 years, 30 plus years. But in this time period, the big 10 was losing college basketball national championship games all over the place.

And it was remarkable. Indiana lost one Illinois lost one Ohio State Greg go to my colony lost one Michigan State then lost another one Michigan lost one then was constant lost one then Michigan lost another one.

So the big 10 was constantly in the mix. Whereas in football, it was just Ohio State.

Ohio State won it no two. They lost the national title game in six and seven. They win it in 14. They lose the national title game in 20. There's nobody else.

Nobody else in big 10 football. You're not even thinking about that. But you're constantly thinking it. So the conversation about around big 10 basketball was constantly.

So close. When are you going to do it again? Like in 2000. And the thing about it was, there's greater strength when it's spread out. It's not like one rope. It's like a net.

With the fibers that they were a net maker. We got the rope makers are net makers out there. The fibers overlap and their strength and numbers.

So you could think about that time period and you could think to yourself, okay.

You need some luck to win a national title, but you also need opportunity. So who even could maybe do it? Who could maybe do it?

And when you thought about big 10 football back then, you thought of one team. But in basketball, you thought about five or six.

So that is not the case anymore. And I think we're almost giving up on big 10 basketball because if you can if you could try to compare that.

What supposedly was the best team in big 10 basketball this year lost with 16 seed.

Imagine people go crazy when Ohio State loses to Michigan, who's good now or when Ohio State loses a playoff game to Clemson or to Georgia, right?

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