This season the Big Ten/ACC challenge occurred for the 13th consecutive year. In the first ten years the ACC controlled this challenge until 2009. That was the first year that the Big Ten won it with six wins to the ACC’s five. The Big Ten won it again last year with that same amount.
This year the Big Ten took it to the ACC yet again and won the challenge 7 to 5. There were a lot of close wins towards the end of the challenge. Minnesota edged out Va. Tech by three and Wake Forest skidded past Nebraska by two. The game that had a lot of fans buzzing was the North Carolina-Wisconsin matchup which was also very close. The Tar Heels won by three late in the game.
There were also some blowouts including OSU pounding Duke by 22, Clemson whooping Iowa by 16, and Northwestern taking control of Georgia Tech by 16 as well. The challenge was exciting because it came down to the last few games to determine who would win.
Some fans may hate these challenges between conferences but I think they’re great. It lets the fans know who the dominate basketball conference is in the NCAA. In college football fans know that the SEC is the best because they have won the last five national titles.
In college basketball however many fans don’t know which conference is better. This gives us a chance to see who the best is and which conference will have the biggest shot to win the Final Four.
