Cumulative Big Ten Standings

Possibly inspired by the current struggles of the Illinois basketball team, I was curious about the cumulative standings for the Big Ten over the years. 

I had to get organized to figure this out. First up, I wanted to give equal weight to football and basketball, so I sorted each team's winning percentage by sport and season (instead of total records which would favor basketball teams since they play more games). Second, to balance schedules, I'm only considering conference records. 

Instead of using 2001-2002 which is unwieldy, I've organized everything by school year and have shortened both programs to be labeled by the start of the fall school year. For example, the 2005 Final Four run is for this chart considered the 2004 Basketball season. 

I thought it would be interesting to sort both by sports and eras, the four years I was in school, the years after, and combined. 

So here's my college era:

Although it seemed our football team was historically awful, freshman year helped. 8th out of 11. And the top basketball program for those four years. Combined 5th out of 11. Not too shabby. The overall leaders in the Big Ten for my college era: Michigan and Ohio State.

Here's since I've graduated:

Football 11th out of 12. Basketball 6th. Overall 10th. A rough stretch. Meanwhile, Ohio State has led both sports.

Well, here's where it all comes together. Total standings since I became an Illini:

Football 11th out of 12. Basketball a respectable 4th. Overall: 8th out of 12. Slightly under .500.

If you scroll through all the images, Illinois has the same pattern. Basketball always better than football. The last column tells the whole story. Ohio State and Wisconsin have been the best. Minnesota and Indiana the worst.