Big Ten Conference Announces 2008 Men's Basketball Television Schedule
Aug. 14, 2007
2008 Big Ten Men's Basketball Schedule
Park Ridge, Ill. -The Big Ten Conference office announced today that all 99 games of the expanded intraconference portion of the 2008 men's basketball schedule will be televised by CBS Sports, ESPN, ESPN2 or the Big Ten Network. The 103rd year of Big Ten play will start on Wed., Jan. 2, 2008, and will feature two more conference outings per team, as the Big Ten schedule increases from 16 to 18 games. Once the intraconference season tips off, Big Ten men's basketball games will be televised on a national basis on every day of the week with the exception of Monday and Friday. CBS Sports will continue broadcasting Big Ten matchups on Sundays. The conference's new 10-year national rights contract with ESPN will double the amount of mid-week games featured, as ESPN or ESPN2 will air a weekly contest on both Tuesday and Thursday while also showing games on Saturday and Sunday. The Big Ten Network, set to launch on Aug. 30, will carry 64 men's basketball intraconference games, nearly two-thirds of the total number of contests. The network schedule will feature a double-header every Wednesday night along with games on Tuesday or Thursday nights and a robust package of weekend games, including double-, triple- and quadruple-headers. All intraconference games will be distributed on a national basis, which means the end of the split-regional or local broadcasts seen in the past. One of the newest features of the 2008 Big Ten men's basketball schedule will be wildcard selections on each of the last three weekends of the regular season. These wildcard selections will feature games that will have the most significant bearing on the Big Ten Championship race. The opening night of Big Ten action on Wed., Jan. 2, will be highlighted by a Big Ten Network double-header including Wisconsin at Michigan at 7 p.m. EST and Indiana at Iowa at 8 p.m. CST, while Northwestern will host Penn State on ESPN2 at 8 p.m. CST. Defending Big Ten champion and national finalist Ohio State will open conference play one night later at Illinois on Thu., Jan. 3 at 7 p.m. CST on ESPN. Michigan State, Minnesota and Purdue will begin their conference slates on Sat., Jan. 5. The conference season will conclude with the 11th annual Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament, which is scheduled to take place Thursday through Sunday, March 13-16, at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Ind. The Big Ten Network will carry Thursday's opening game, one of three tournament contests appearing on the network along with a pair of Friday night quarterfinal matchups featuring the openers for the second and third seeds. ESPN2 will broadcast the remaining first round games on Thursday before ESPN carries the first two quarterfinal tilts on Friday. CBS Sports will televise the semifinal and championship games on Saturday and Sunday, respectively. The 2008 Big Ten men's basketball conference composite television schedule can be viewed as a PDF using the above link.
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