New places, more miles: The reality of conference play in Big Ten men’s basketball

Welcome to the Big Ten travelogue. In other words, look at all the bad things that can happen when you go traipsing across the country to play conference basketball games in places you haven’t seen forever.

For a sample of what life can be like for the West Coasters in the Big Ten these days, consider the past week. A lot of the odd-couple pairings the conference now features did not end well for the tourists.

USC had not played a game at Michigan since 1947. Welcome to Ann Arbor. By the time the Trojans finally scored with 13:19 left in the first half, they had missed their first seven shots, coach Eric Musselman had a technical foul and the Wolverines led 11-0. The final was 96-66, which was the third ranked opponent in a row Michigan had thrashed by at least 30 points, something never seen before in the history of the Associated Press poll, which has been around since the 1940s. A bad year to be visiting Michigan.

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Three days later, USC was at Michigan State for the first time since 1953. That one was 80-51 as the Trojans shot under 33 percent, including missing 14 of 17 from beyond the arc.

So USC had packed its 12-1 record and No. 24 ranking, flown East, and in two games, had trailed for 74 of 80 minutes, lost by a combined 59 points and had as many turnovers as field goals — 38 of each. And it’s not over. Now the Trojans head for Minnesota, where they’ve never played ever. That’ll be Friday.

“We’ll see how we respond,” Musselman said at East Lansing. “It’s unprecedented for this league to have a three-game road trip. We’re the first ones that I know that’s done it and stayed on the road the whole time.”

UCLA hadn’t played a game in the state of Iowa in 35 years, until they visited the Hawkeyes Saturday, fell behind by 24 points, cut that margin to four, but lost by 13. The Bruins will be playing at Wisconsin Tuesday night for the first time since 1962 and that won’t be easy, either. Maybe an 10-day layoff didn’t help get ready for such a journey.

“I don’t like talking about that because I don’t like excuses,” coach Mick Cronin said after the Iowa loss. “We just really lacked the toughness to execute on both ends. Our toughness changed, and we went from 24 down to four down. It’s disappointing how soft we were in the first 20 minutes. Extremely disappointing. I have to throw my coat and rip a suit to be able to get some guys to play with some toughness.”

Oregon played for the first time ever at Maryland and won, then showed up at Rutgers for the first time since 1982 and lost 88-85 in overtime when the Ducks were outscored 26-7 in points off turnovers. So Oregon crossed four time zones to split.

“Very disappointed,” coach Dana Altman said “We’ve got to get a lot more disciplined; I’ve been talking about that. Our toughness is not very good.”

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Washington hadn’t played at Indiana since 1978, and Sunday night the Huskies probably wondered why they ever came back when the Hoosiers’ first five shots were all 3-pointers and all went in, and they didn’t have a turnover until they were leading 43-35. Indiana won a 90-80 game in which each team had only four turnovers. Washington, now 9-5, jumped on the bus and headed up the road to Purdue, where their Wednesday game will be its first in West Lafayette since 1966.

The Huskies jetted out to Bloomington last Friday night and will get back to Seattle at 4 a.m. Thursday, so this ain’t a pleasure cruise. Still, as coach Danny Sprinkle noted in Bloomington, “Anytime you’re playing in in an environment like this, it brings energy. Our guys are never tired when they show up in these Big Ten arenas.”

Good thing, because Washington has another trip later this month to Illinois and Northwestern, and then the leap-the-continent swing in February to Maryland and Rutgers. “It’s a long time being away from home,” Sprinkle said. “By the third time you do it, it gets old.”

So it goes for a team that has one conference colleague — Oregon — within a thousand driving miles.

Of course the Eastern slab of the Big Ten has to come West, too. After the past few days, the old Pac-12 quartet will be happy to see them.