UCLA coach Mick Cronin did not waste any time after the Bruins upset Purdue on Tuesday night. Instead of focusing on his team’s win over the No. 4 team in the nation, Cronin used his opening remarks to take aim at the Big Ten’s schedulers.
“I want to thank the Big Ten for giving us five of our first seven on the road, bringing Purdue here on Thursday night when we don’t get back to L.A. until Saturday night and giving us the team picked to win the league on two days’ rest after five of our first seven on the road,” Cronin said sarcastically. “Really, I want to thank the Big Ten for that.”
This is not a new complaint. Cronin raised similar concerns last season in UCLA’s first year in the Big Ten, and he followed this one by saying he does not believe the conference cares about basketball. But while the travel and scheduling challenges are real, it is difficult to feel much sympathy. UCLA’s situation is largely self-inflicted.
UCLA Chose This Reality
To Cronin’s credit, he acknowledged that some of these issues are unavoidable when playing in a league centered in the Midwest. Still, that does not change the larger point. UCLA and USC chose to leave the Pac-12 and join the Big Ten. No one forced either school to make a move that ultimately helped destabilize their former conference in pursuit of greater revenue.
The Big Ten’s map commercial, which airs during conference events, unintentionally highlights the absurdity. There is a long stretch of empty space between UCLA and Nebraska, the closest of the league’s 14 pre-2024 members. UCLA knew it was joining a conference where extended road trips and multiple time zones would be unavoidable.
The Bruins also left one of the most travel-friendly basketball leagues in the country. The Pac-12 schedule was simple and efficient, often featuring two games over a three-day span. Outside of trips to Colorado and Utah, most travel involved a single flight and a short bus ride. UCLA willingly gave that up to chase football dollars across the Central and Eastern time zones.
The Big Ten Has Tried to Help
When UCLA and USC initially joined the league, they were set to be the only West Coast schools. That changed when Oregon and Washington also departed the Pac-12, giving UCLA additional conference opponents in the same time zone.
That matters. The Bruins now have fewer road games outside the Pacific Time Zone, and several trips can be paired efficiently. Iowa and Wisconsin, for example, were combined into one swing. The same was true for Ohio State and Penn State.
Other western schools in eastern conferences do not receive that kind of scheduling consideration. In the ACC, Stanford plays both Wake Forest and NC State, yet those games are not paired on the same trip. Despite Raleigh and Winston-Salem being less than two hours apart, Stanford plays Wake Forest alongside Boston College, while NC State is paired with Notre Dame. That is far more inefficient than anything UCLA is dealing with.
Last season, Cronin complained that UCLA had seen the Statue of Liberty twice from the team plane before flying home to face Iowa. But that was not the Big Ten’s doing. UCLA chose to schedule a non-conference game in New York against North Carolina two weeks before playing Rutgers. For the most part, the conference has made an effort to give the Bruins two games per road trip, with Minnesota the lone exception outside the West Coast schools.
Eighteen Teams, Eighteen Sets of Problems
The reality is that the Big Ten now has 18 schools, and keeping all of them reasonably satisfied is a difficult task. UCLA’s geography complicates things even further.
UCLA and USC sit just 15 miles apart. There is little reason for the Big Ten to send a team to Los Angeles without having it play both schools. That means any trip to L.A. requires careful coordination among multiple schedules.
In this case, Purdue played USC first, then UCLA, after the Bruins returned from a trip to Penn State and Ohio State. USC hosted Maryland earlier in the week to make the Los Angeles swing work. Northwestern followed Purdue into L.A. to keep the rotation balanced. Managing that many moving parts is not easy, and no scheduling solution is going to satisfy everyone.
Cronin only has to manage one basketball program. The Big Ten has to manage 18. When conflicts arise, the geographic outlier is often the one that feels the strain, especially when that outlier chose to be there in the first place.
If this was your kind of read, you’ll like what’s next. Get The Sandman Ticket, our free, weekly newsletter with picks, insights, and a little bit of everything we love about sports.
