Jim O'Donnell: Stop devouring their own - a cure for Big Ten men's basketball
AS W.C. FIELDS ONCE SAID, "Start a day with a smile and get it over with."
Maybe that thought contributed to the foundational philosophy when they started the Big Ten men's basketball tournament in 1998.
Start a grueling season with a long conference slate and then let the best survivors devour their own before The Big Dance.
Commercially, the Big Ten men's tournament has been a consistent success.
TV money has assured that.
In terms of sending champions off to fast break and conquer in the NCAA tournament, it's been a disaster.
Consider:
• Since 1998, only Tom Izzo, Mateen Cleaves and Michigan State (2000) have gone from conference tournament crown to NCAA championship;
• No other Big Ten team has won an NCAA title since Michigan in 1989;
• Since 2010, the Big Ten has had only four No. 1 seeds - count 'em, four - and only John Beilein's Michigan (2013 and 2018) and Bo Ryan's Wisconsin (2015) have reached the final 40 minutes before others waltzed to "One Shining Moment."
Moral: A change has got to come.
So, in the interests of allowing conference administrators to even more precisely exploit nonsalaried, high-talent adolescent athletes, a suggestion for interim amendment:
Allow the top two finishers after the Big Ten's bruising regular season to skip the conference tournament.
Very simple.
That would mean that this weekend in Indianapolis, Fritz Wagner and No. 1 Michigan along with Ayo Dosunmu and No. 2 Illinois would be absent.
Absent to refresh, refocus and be rewarded for their triumphs through the long, slick Big Ten basketball winter.
In terms of seeding, any result from Annoying Indy will be of minimal impact to either the Wolverines or the Illini.
Both will be no lower than No. 2 regional seeds when the 68-team field is announced Sunday (CBS, 5 p.m.).
Instead, both are sentenced to a weekend of physical risk and emotional drainage in Lucas Oil Stadium.
Think either Juwan Howard or Brad Underwood will be starting Selection Sunday with a smile?
Or just wanting to get it over with?
THE INCORRIGIBLE GUM-IT-UPS at Churchill Downs Inc. are at it again.
With the specter of a probable final season of racing at Arlington Park looming, Bill Carstanjen and his imperious marauders have vaporized the Arlington Million.
In its place, the Kentucky Bilkos - as in "Sgt. Bilko," the master flimflam man - plan to substitute the $600,000 "Mister D Stakes" at 1¼ miles on the grass Aug. 14.
The titular "Mr. D" is 99-year-old track grandmaster Dick Duchossois, who deserves much, much better.
If Carstanjen and crew were capable of generating engaging progressive thought, the correct answer would have been to designate Million weekend as "The Richard L. Duchossois International Festival of Racing" and maintain the main event at its famous purse level.
Instead, the golden banjo pluckers play on.
CDI bosses would be better served to focus on the increasing cracks in the operation of its once-crisp Rivers Casino in Des Plaines, owned in partnership with Neil Bluhm.
In prime time on a recent weekend evening, no fewer than 51 patrons got to stand in a non-privileged line while a lone cage cashier attempted to keep up with "poor players" payouts.
That's a wait time of more than an hour for back-enders.
Quite a feather in the operational caps of Carstanjen, Bluhm and current Rivers GM Corey Wise.
STREET-BEATIN': Jerry Reinsdorf, 85, has told pals that a remaining life goal is to witness the 100th anniversary of the MLB All-Star Game wherever the White Sox are calling home in 2033. (The Sox hosted the inaugural.) ...
Strong hints DePaul A.D. DeWayne Peevy is set to shop to replace Dave Leitao. An intriguing candidate is Illinois assistant Orlando "Hurricane" Antigua, the former Harlem Globetrotter who has a back channel to Peevy through John Calipari. ...
Purdue has two of the most watchable freshmen in the nation with Jordanesque Jaden Ivey - son of Notre Dame women's coach Niele Ivey - and Zach Edey, a fluid 7-foot-4 Canadian. (The fourth-seeded Boilermakers begin tournament play on the Big Ten Network Friday shortly after 1:55 p.m.) ...
Memo to Ryan Pace: Jim Finks would figure a way to land gifted Northwestern OT Rashawn Slater. ...
Why do so many of the callers to Mike Greenberg's midday ESPN Radio show suddenly sound like they're from the kids choir in "Another Brick in the Wall?" ...
And Jay Mariotti, on reports that no-schtick Fox Sports is considering a show starring Skip Bayless as a "Judge Judy"-style sports opinion arbiter: "I'd prefer watching Judge Judy convict Bayless for media malpractice."
• Jim O'Donnell's Sports & Media column appears Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com.