The Big Ten Tournament will be played at Madison Square Garden in 2018, according to Pete Thamel of SI.com.
With the ACC Tournament also shifting to the Barclays Center for 2017 and ’18 and the Big East Tournament remaining at the Garden, New York City will host the Big Ten, ACC and Big East conference tournaments in 2018.
Ironically, longtime former Big East member UConn won’t be involved in any of the three postseason tournaments in New York that year.
The Big Ten Tournament in 2018 will wrap up on the Sunday before Selection Sunday, with the Big East Tournament following and ending the Saturday night before Selection Sunday, Thamel reported.
“The Big East is contracted there through the early ’20s, and we wanted to get there ASAP,” Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany told USA Today on Saturday. “We’d been trying to think about how to get to New York. … We’ll do (the tournament) a little early. I’ve talked to our coaches, and they’re on board with it, excited about it.”
That means the Big Ten teams — including new members Rutgers and Maryland — will have an 11-day gap before the start of the NCAA Tournament.
“We’ll have a little time left to rest and recover,” Delany told USA Today. “Some of them may play a game, but most of them want to rest and do some prep. Many of the (coaches) came from mid-major ranks (which have earlier postseason tournaments), so this is not new to that. They understood the value of being in New York, being in an iconic place. … It’s a one-year situation. We’ll see how we do, see long-term, see how fans respond.”
The Big Ten will host its postseason tournament in Chicago in 2015, Indianapolis in 2016 and Washington, D.C. in 2017.
