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The ACC/Big Ten Challenge is already the best early season college basketball events in the country, mostly because it gets rid of the austerity of neutral site tournaments and gives you major matchups played on campus. The Big Ten will soon be joining forces with another conference, as the Big East and the Big Ten will begin the season tipoff "Gavitt Games" to start the 2015-16 season.
Once again, this is another smart move by Jim Delaney to get the conference more early season exposure. While the Big East is a shell of its former self, it still has some name-brand recognition thanks to its re-structure as a basketball-first conference. Its teams will continue to be highly (over)rated and get eyes from major TV networks.
With only 10 teams in the Big East at minimum four teams will be left out, but there are certainly some good potential matchups:
Nebraska-Creighton
Marquette-Wisconsin
Xavier-Ohio State
Indiana/Purdue-Butler (depending on if the Crossroads Classic continues, as the last contracted year is 2014-15)
Georgetown-Maryland
Seton Hall-Rutgers
DePaul-Northwestern
What it means for Purdue is another quality non-conference game. Butler has owned us for awhile right now, but Purdue has had some good recent games with Xavier and a matchup with St. John's would be interesting for the Gene Keady/Steve Lavin storylines. If we were to play DePaul Sandi Marcius would have to question where his loyalties lie too.
Like the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, who plays whom may be determined by the finishing order from the previous season, so we at least need to get back into the top 10 of the Big Ten first.