Big Ten has announced how they are going to do scheduling (kind of).
http://www.bigten.org/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/101917aab.htmlBasically, they will lock in-state teams for home and homes every year. They are also going to start "regional" based scheduling. Over 6 years, in-state teams will play 12 times, "regional" teams 10 times, and everyone else 9 times.
I played through this on my own and tried to figure out how this would work and think I got it. The "regional opponents" are almost certainly going to be:
Ohio State, Penn State, Maryland, and Rutgers.
Wisconsin, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota
-That makes sense for everyone except Ohio State who doesn't identify as an east coast school and has stronger history elsewhere, but I can see how they came to it even if not a fan of the grouping (OSU was simply odd man out).
So the schedules look like this:
Michigan/Michigan State/Illinois/Northwestern/Indiana/Purdue:
-Home and home every year vs. instate team
-Play home and home with other 12 schools every other year (with 6 extra games)
Other 8 schools:
-Start with a schedule of playing everyone home and home every other year outside of your "regional opponents" (10 teams, 15 games a year)
-Will play 5 games vs. your "regional opponents" every year meaning a home and home with 2 of the 3 each year on a rotation basis (hence the 6 year cycle).
On a personal level, I don't really like the regional grouping from an Ohio State fan perspective (I personally get most excited playing Michigan followed by Wisconsin and Indiana), but I like the 20 games a year in conference and think it works out well for everyone else there. It also still only amounts to one extra game vs. each of the 3 eastern schools over 6 year vs. anyone else and we still at least get everyone else more too. In short, not exactly what I was looking for, but I'll take it given how it makes sense for the other 13 schools and the 20 game schedule.