May 22, 2025<\/a><\/p>\nAs Oregon illustrated this season in winning 41 of 54 games in the regular season, a blueprint exists to achieve national success in the Big Ten. UCLA, too, has positioned itself to host a Regional next week.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty hard to ignore,\u201d Nebraska coach Will Bolt said of the impact delivered by new teams in the league. \u201cAnd their commitment to baseball is something that the traditional Big Ten schools continue to strive for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oregon second baseman Ryan Cooney, a sophomore who played in the Pac-12 a year ago, said the Big Ten play compares favorably to what he\u2019s experienced on the diamond outside of the conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was this initial narrative that the Big Ten wasn\u2019t as strong,\u201d Cooney said, \u201cbut I would say that\u2019s not the reality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oregon brought national home run leader Mason Neville, an Arkansas transfer, to Big Ten stadiums this year. UCLA sophomore Roch Cholowsky was named the Big Ten player of the year.<\/p>\n
But the rosters of traditional Big Ten schools contain many of the top players, including the league\u2019s pitcher of the year, Joseph Dzierwa of Michigan State.<\/p>\n
Schools such as Penn State, which has qualified for the NCAA postseason once in the past 47 years, are investing in the sport. Though the Nittany Lions have yet to get over the hump under second-year coach Mike Gambino, they finished the regular season with a winning record for the second consecutive year. And Penn State beat USC on Thursday to earn a spot in the Big Ten tournament semifinals, remaining alive to earn the league\u2019s automatic bid to the NCAAs.<\/p>\n
Administrative leaders obsessed with success in football and basketball are buying into baseball, according to league coaches.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s been trending up for a few years,\u201d Michigan coach Tracy Smith said, \u201cmaybe as far back as Michigan and Indiana (in 2013) making it to the College World Series.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith coached that Indiana squad 12 years ago, the first Big Ten team in 39 years to appear in the CWS, then he left to coach Arizona State in 2015. He returned to the Big Ten in 2023. So Smith has experienced both sides of the power struggle.<\/p>\n
Before this season, he fielded questions often about the West Coast invasion.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you like it?\u201d fans and interested parties in the sport asked him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI absolutely like it,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThat does nothing but elevate the league. I think the Big Ten is in a great spot. I\u2019m not so sure we\u2019re getting the national attention that we deserve, but maybe people will wake up at some point and start realizing that this is a pretty darn good baseball league.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, the conference falls short in comparison to the top three leagues. Since 2013, the SEC has placed an average of 9.1 teams per year into the NCAA Tournament, followed by the ACC at 7.8 and the Big 12 at 4.7. The Big Ten has averaged 3.3 over that time. It was outnumbered in the 64-team field by the Sun Belt in each of the last three seasons.<\/p>\n
This year, the conference RPI of the Big Ten sits at No. 4 nationally, ahead of Conference USA.<\/p>\n
But only Oregon, UCLA and USC appear in solid shape to make the bracket on Monday, and USC\u2019s spot is a bit tenuous after Thursday\u2019s loss to Penn State \u2014 the Trojans\u2019 sixth defeat in their last eight games.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have more teams this year,\u201d Nebraska\u2019s Bolt said. \u201cWe should certainly have more bids and get the benefit of the doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll see on Monday.<\/p>\n
The others left alive this week at the conference tournament in Omaha \u2014 Iowa, Nebraska and Penn State \u2014 likely must win the crown to receive an invite.<\/p>\n
Oregon\u2019s Wasikowski coached Purdue from 2017 to 2019. He and Michigan\u2019s Smith advocate for a restructured college season that starts and ends a month later than its current February-to-June regimen. An opening weekend in March and a CWS built around the MLB All-Star break in July would undoubtedly drive interest in regions less exposed to college baseball.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think baseball has the biggest growth opportunity in any sport in college athletics,\u201d Wasikowski said. \u201cBut the (college) presidents and ADs are going to have to come to grips with that and decide to go with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Smith coached in the Pac-12, he listened to coaches from the North make their case to shift the calendar. Then he watched coaches in spots similar to his shake their heads and dismiss the proposal.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy blunt opinion on it,\u201d Smith said, \u201cis that it\u2019s disgusting we don\u2019t do it. This sport is growing. If you put a gun to my head and said, \u2018What is the reason we don\u2019t do it?\u2019 I think it\u2019s self-serving. Certain leagues and certain institutions know that they have an advantage. So why change it?<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one could ever convince me that we couldn\u2019t do this if we sat down and made it a priority. But the world is politics, man, and you\u2019ve got some people controlling it at the top. I was part of that. It\u2019s sad but true.\u201d<\/p>\n
Part of the commitment to baseball in the Big Ten involves reasonable travel and a functional system to award the automatic postseason bid. The Big Ten switched this year to a pool-play system for its conference tournament, modeling it after a defunct ACC method.<\/p>\n
The result? Three games out of four on Thursday in Omaha were meaningless for both teams involved. Oregon and Nebraska are scheduled to play Friday night for the last open spot in the semifinal round.<\/p>\n
In March, Nebraska served as a guinea pig for a travel arrangement that sent the Huskers to Los Angeles for consecutive Big Ten weekend series at UCLA and USC. The Huskers spent 12 days on the road \u2014 and 11 consecutive nights in a Venice Beach hotel.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot a fan,\u201d Bolt said. \u201cYou don\u2019t even see big-league clubs do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yes, hurdles remain for the Big Ten to clear before it\u2019s recognized in every realm on the level of the top three leagues.<\/p>\n
It comes down to the investment made by each program.<\/p>\n
With revenue sharing expected to be introduced once the House settlement passes, how much of that money will Big Ten schools allocate to baseball? On many campuses in the league, hockey and\/or wrestling might be higher up the food chain among the fan base.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know that there\u2019s an absolute answer to that,\u201d said Peterson, an Omahan who pitched at Stanford and has long helped lead ESPN\u2019s television coverage of the CWS.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen, but I know that \u2026 our game is so much better if the power athletic departments, the athletic departments that are football powerhouses and potentially the basketball powerhouses are the ones that are committing money to (baseball).\u201d<\/p>\n
The ball, so to speak, is in the Big Ten\u2019s court.<\/p>\n
(Photo of Mason Neville: Abigail Dollins \/ USA Today Network via Imagn Images)<\/p>\n