This afternoon, I received a press release about the Big Four Classic being held in Iowa between the four big basketball schools in the state. It is only a one-day matchup involving Iowa State, Drake, Iowa and Northern Iowa. Pretty neat concept, right?
What would something similar look like in Ohio?
While Columbus’ Nationwide Arena would be a perfect neutral site venue for the event, I would not want it to just be a one-day event. What if this was a three-day, eight-team tournament akin to what takes place in Maui every season.
Imagine a tournament bracket including Ohio State, Cincinnati, Ohio, Xavier and Dayton. Have your attention, right? And then throw in some of Ohio’s other teams. Round it out with Toledo, Cleveland, State and Wright State.
Safe to say ESPN would be interested. So would other media outlets.
Too bad the big boys would never go for such an event. Never hurts to dream though.
Some of the best college basketball matchups you’ll never see
As Wright State fans gripe about playing teams like Urbana and Ohio Dominican, one game that I am sure you would like to see (but won’t) is the matchup between the Raiders and Toledo. You might be going to the WSU Athletics website to see when this matchup is. Stop. It is not on their website.
You will probably have an easier time getting into the White House than one of these secret scrimmages.
Not only will you not be able to watch this huge in-state matchup between Wright State and Toledo, you won’t know what happened. No formal statistics are to be taken.
Toledo comes to Wright State Nov. 1 coming off a 27-7 record and finished No. 10 in the Mid-Major Top 25 Poll. Next to Belmont, this is arguably the Raiders’ best home game of the year.
Turns out that great matchups will be taking place all over the nation over the next two weeks. Jeff Goodman at ESPN published a list of secret scrimmages over the next few weeks.
This weekend’s top matchups you won’t see are:
Davidson at Texas
Ohio State at West Virginia
Nebraska vs Kansas State
Iowa at Creighton
The following weekend is the biggest weekend for these secret games. The highlights:
Stanford as SDSU
VCU at Florida
Marquette at Virginia
TCU at Wichita State
Georgia Tech vs Alabama
NC State vs Georgia
Minnesota at Iowa State
South Carolina at Va. Tech
Dayton vs Illinois
And to round out games the final weekend of the preseason:
Gonzaga vs Texas
Colorado at SMU
Virginia at Georgetown
While fans and media will know nothing about what took place at the WSU/UT game on Nov. 1, coach Billy Donlon should get a good look at how his team will stack up against top mid-major talent.
