My brother and I go around and around on this subject because I am a firm believer that winning the Big Ten Conference in football means a lot and not so much in basketball. He claims this is primarily due to the fact that as a Michigan fan, my team has tended to win it's share of football titles, and not won a basketball title in quite some time, even in the Fab Four days.

The merits of winning the football title are fairly obvious; you are assured of either the Rose Bowl or the BCS Championship game.  You cannot win the National Championship without winning the title. And since the BCS Championship pairing includes subjectivity, if you win the Big Ten and say have 0 or 1 loss you have the right to say you deserved to be in the title game. Playing in the Rose Bowl is also one heck of a consolation prize if you don't make the big game.

Basketball...64 teams make the tournament every year. Any more 6 seed or above has a legitimate chance to win the Tournament. The Big Ten sends at least 5 schools to the tournament.

So what does winning the Big Ten regular season really mean? Does it guarantee a Number 1 seed in the tournament? No. Does it assure home court advantage in the early rounds? No. Does it prove you are the best ten in the conference? Maybe.

On this last point I stress two reasons that winning the regular season title may or may not prove you are the best team. College basketball is very much a home court advantage type of sport, even more so than college football (someone have the stats to disprove this please send them along). The way the conference schedule plays out, the top 3 teams may play each other only once, with the team having home court having a big advantage.

Let's say Michigan State gets to beat up Michigan, Penn State, Northwestern twice each this season but only has to play Indiana  and Wisconsin once and they are home games for the Spartans. And let's say Indiana had to play Wisconsin twice and played one of the cupcakes only once. MSU finishes 16-2 and Indiana finishes 15-3..it is clear who should be the Big Ten champ?

Second point what do you do if one team wins the regular season title but loses in it's first conference tournament game while a close second place team wins the tournament. Using my theoretical season above, if Indiana was 15-3 and won the tournament while MSU lost its first tournament game....would it be obvious who is the best team in the Big Ten? Or would you wait to see how each of them did in the NCAAs to decide.

The change to an 18 game conference schedule improves the value of the Big Ten regular season...when it was only 16 games, that meant you were playing 4 teams only once making my point above much more valid. However the combination of the conference tournament (waste of time) and the size of the NCAA Tournament dilute the regular season.

So what is my preference for viewing my team's success in basketball?

1. National Championship
2. Final Four
3. Elite Eight
4. Regular Season conference champ
5. Sweet 16
6. Big Ten Tournament champ
7. Making the NCAA

in that order...

Of course given the state of Michigan basketball it will be a few years before any of the above are a reality.