News-Record.com

OK, it's good to see Northwestern coach Bill Carmody is at least as confused as I was by his team's pairing with Virginia in the Big Ten-ACC Challenge this year, which again demonstrated that the Big Ten is hardwoodly challenged when it comes to matching up with the ACC in November.

As he pointed out in this Roanoke Times story Wednesday, the Big Ten doesn't do a preseason poll, "but, if they did have one, we'd have to be near the bottom," Carmody said.

We admire his honesty. The Wildcats are quite horrid. So playing a UVa team that was the No. 2 seed in last year's ACC tournament and was picked to finish fifth this year seems an unfair matchup. Oh, yeah, UVa hit 16 3-pointers and won by 42 points.

Maybe Rob or Jim can explain to me the league and TV ramifications that brought us this game and an overmatched N.C. State team against Michigan State, which despite finishing 8-8 in its league last year, has to be considered one of the top 2 or 3 teams in the Big Ten. N.C. State finished 7th in the ACC last year, I think, though the Pack was picked a little higher this year if I'm not mistaken. So I'll give a pass on that one. Surely, the Ohio State-UNC pairing was established with the expectation that Greg Oden and Mike Conley would be back in Columbus this year. Another pass.

At least Duke-Wisconsin, Maryland-Illinois and Penn State-Virginia Tech made sense. Well, at least on paper they did. Yeesh, Badgers.