It’s the middle of August, the college football season hasn’t started, and ESPN.com’s Joe Lunardi has released his first Bracketology. All kidding aside, Big Ten fans will like Lunardi’s prognostications, as he has seven Big Ten teams dancing, which ties the Big East for the most in the field.

The start times for each game of the 14th annual ACC/Big Ten Challenge, presented by DICK’s Sporting Goods, to be played Tuesday and Wednesday, Nov. 27 and 28, were announced Tuesday morning. See when every game will be played in this post.

Athlon recently released its ranking of the top 30 men’s basketball coaches, and Michigan State’s Tom Izzo found his name atop the prestigious list. Izzo beat out the usual suspects, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and Kentucky’s John Calipairi, for top billing and was one of six Big Ten coaches who the made cut. That’s half of the Big Ten coaches, for you non-math majors. And now you know why the experts say the Big Ten features the best coaches.

TheBigLead.com’s Jason McIntyre posted his list of the 50 best players in college basketball for the 2012-2013 season Friday, and Indiana rising sophomore Cody Zeller topped the list. Zeller beat out highly touted UCLA recruit Shabazz Muhammad for the No. 1 spot and was one of seven Big Ten players who made the cut. See the entire Big Ten list in this post.

Team USA tips off its Olympic training slate with its first exhibition game Thursday in Las Vegas. USA is stacked, per usual, and it’s the favorite to win gold next month in London. With the action about to start, I got to thinking: what if Team USA was comprised of only former Big Ten players, starting with the 2007-08 season (the BTN era)? See what my 12-man roster would look like in this post.