The 2017 Men’s Big Ten Championships will take place at Ohio State University this coming season, while the 2017 Women’s Big Ten meet will happen at Purdue.
Programs across the NCAA have begun releasing 2016-2017 schedules that feature the two meets, which will take place in February of next year.
The men’s conference championship meet will take place at Ohio State University for the first time since 2010. More recently, the school hosted the women’s conference championship meet in 2015.
That sets up an exciting neutral-ground showdown between the Michigan and Indiana men. Michigan won its 6th straight Big Ten title last winter, but finished behind Indiana for the title of top Big Ten program at the NCAA Championships – Michigan was 12th and Indiana 9th.
Intriguingly enough, Michigan hasn’t lost the Big Ten title since 2010 – the last time the men’s Big Ten Championships were hosted in this same Ohio State pool. That year, Ohio State rolled to victory in front of its home crowd.
On the women’s side, the meet will head to West Lafayette, which also hasn’t hosted the women’s meet since 2010. That year, Indiana took home the team title, the second in a three-year run. Then Minnesota would take over for four straight years before Michigan knocked them off last spring.
I think leaving Ohio State out the runnings for Big 10 champs is a mistake. They did not graduate a lot of scorers last year and have a great returning class. In addition, their freshman this year can help make up in some areas where they did not score well last year. They had one of the largest teams at Olympic Trials over the summer, showing that they definitely have talent on the team.