Sunday, February 22, 2009

Big Ten Finishes with 15-9 Edge in Challenge Victories

The final two games have concluded at the BIG EAST/Big Ten Challenge, with Illinois polishing off West Virginia (17-10) while Notre Dame rallied to beat Purdue in 10 innings (9-4).

The Big Ten won 15 of the 24 games, led by 3-0 marks from Michigan and Ohio State (Indiana was 2-1). Six other Big Ten teams (Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan State, Northwestern and Penn State) all went 1-1, in the unbalanced format, with the other win coming from Purdue (1-2).

Notre Dame, St. John's and Seton Hall each went 2-1 to pace the BIG EAST effort, with other victories coming from South Florida, West Virginia and Connecticut (each 1-2). Cincinnati and Georgetown were the only teams from either conference that failed to post a victory during the tournament (each was 0-3).

Despite nearly being doubled up in the win category, the BIG EAST actually scored 27 more runs than the Big Ten teams (166-139), in the 24 cross-conference games. The final tournament stats - coming soon - likely will show a considerable edge for the BIG EAST in batting avg. and ERA, but we suspect that the Big Ten was the better clutch-hitting team (and won nearly all of the close games).

Sunday's eight games featured only one (Illinois-WVU) in which the BIG EAST did not have a chance to win/tie in the 9th inning - while the UConn-Northwestern game was the only one in which the Big Ten was not competitive.

More to come on the CB360 blog throughout the night.

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