Green Street | Big Ten scheduling implications

Welcome to "Green Street," your dose of women's college basketball news from Illini beat writer and AP Top 25 voter Joe Vozzelli. He'll offer up insight on Shauna Green's Illini team and the women's game at large every week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

An 18-game Big Ten women's basketball schedule creates a bit of a headache. A headache that could become worse in the case of tiebreaker scenarios at season's end. That the league stuck with the 18-game slate it had used the previous six seasons despite going from 14 teams to 18 teams is sure to be a talking point this winter.

Especially given on the men's side there's a 20-game Big Ten schedule.

What it means on the women's side is that each team will play one game against 16 Big Ten opponents with the 17th league foe appearing twice on the schedule.

Shauna Green 's third season as Illinois coach will see the Illini hosting Oregon (Dec. 28), Washington (Dec. 31), Iowa (Jan. 9), Michigan State (Jan. 19), Purdue (Jan. 27), Penn State (Feb. 13), Nebraska (Feb. 16) and Michigan (March 2) in Big Ten play with road conference matchups against Ohio State (Dec. 8), Minnesota (Jan. 5), Indiana (Jan. 16), Rutgers (Jan. 30), Maryland (Feb. 2), Wisconsin (Feb. 9), UCLA (Feb. 20) and Southern California (Feb. 23).

Lastly, Illinois will face Northwestern twice with a Jan. 23 visit to Welsh-Ryan Arena in Evanston before the Wildcats make the return trip on Feb. 6 to State Farm Center.

That's somewhat of a scheduling break for the Illini considering Northwestern is expected to finish in the bottom half of the Big Ten after back-to-back single-digit win seasons.

Where this gets interesting is the case of USC and UCLA. The Trojans and Bruins are considered the favorites to win the Big Ten regular-season title in their first seasons in the new-look league and will likely start the 2024-25 season in the top five of The Associated Press preseason Top 25.

The Bruins and Trojans will play twice in the regular season, with both matchups carrying potentially conference title-winning implications. USC hosts UCLA on Feb. 13 at the Galen Center before the regular-season finale featuring a Bruins-Trojans matchup on March 1 at Pauley Pavilion.

Ohio State — last season's Big Ten regular-season champs — will play Maryland twice.

"I think what makes it unique this season is that every game, just the importance of it," Terrapins coach Brenda Frese said Wednesday at Big Ten media day in Rosemont. "You're only playing each other once except for the one partner that you have. It's going to feel like the NCAA tournament every night because it's going to matter when you talk about later in March of your tiebreakers and who has beat each other. It's going to be fun to watch."