Morning Power Bar: Bronny James to the Big Ten; Schedule Release

This is a weekly column for BTPowerhouse that will cover a variety of Big Ten topics that might not deserve a detailed breakdown, but deserve mention. It will be similar to a news roundup with more thoughts and analysis.

So, let’s jump into our Morning Power Bar.

1. The recruitment for LeBron James’ children heats up.

Unless you’ve been trapped under a rock the last few years, you’ve probably heard of Bronny James, the often discussed son of NBA superstar LeBron James. He’s starting to creep up to college age and his recruitment has been heating up. A variety of schools are already pursuing him, including multiple Big Ten schools.

However, things don’t stop there. LeBron’s younger son (Bryce James) is also starting to get recruiting attention. He was offered by Duquesne late last month and don’t expect things to stop there. Plenty of schools will be involved, including the Big Ten.

We’ll have to wait and see how things sort out, but expect to hear plenty about these two in the coming years. Perhaps the Big Ten will be lucky enough to get a commitment (or two).

2. Four Big Ten arenas make CBS’ list of best environments.

Over the last few years, CBS Sports has run one of the most intriguing series in college sports coverage. It’s called the “Candid Coaches” series and features interviews with coaches off the record, where they can rank various aspects of college basketball. It’s a great way to get coaches to be honest about topics they’d otherwise refuse to address.

Well, a piece of this series recently ran where coaches were asked to anonymously rank the best environments in college basketball. Most of the venues were ones you would expect and the Big Ten was well represented. Purdue and Indiana made the cut as “Tier 2” arenas, the Breslin Center made “Tier 3”, and Illinois received votes on at least three ballots.

We did a roundtable discussion on the topic years back and much of our discussion mirrored what you see in these articles. It’s a fun topic and Big Ten fans have to be excited to see so many arenas make the cut.

3. The Big Ten sets its schedule release.

The league released a bit of significant news on Tuesday, announcing the forthcoming Big Ten schedule release. It’s set to occur on BTN for the women on Wednesday and for the men on Thursday. The release consisted of the following:

Tomorrow at Noon ET on a special edition of B1G Today, the Big Ten Network will unveil the 2022-23 Big Ten women’s basketball conference schedule. Thursday, also at noon ET, the 2022-23 men’s basketball conference schedule will be announced on B1G Today, which can also be streamed on your tablet or mobile device via the Fox Sports App.

On Wednesday, Dave Revsine and Meghan McKeown will be joined by Megan Kahn, the Big Ten Conference’s vice president of women’s basketball, to breakdown the schedules and highlight the key matchups. On Thursday, Revsine and Kerry Kenny, the Big Ten Conference’s senior vice president for television, media analytics and emerging platforms, will provide insight into the men’s schedule. Additional analysis will be available on the Big Ten Network’s social media pages via Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

It should make for an exciting day of content and BTPowerhouse will certainly post the full schedules as soon as they’re made available.

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