The Big Ten office announced the conference schedule for the 2014 football season today, as approved by the Big Ten Directors of Athletics. The 2014 schedule will consist of eight games for each of the Big Ten’s 14 teams, feature a new division alignment, include the conference debut of Maryland and Rutgers and culminate with the fourth annual Big Ten Football Championship Game.

At its spring meetings in Chicago, the Big Ten may discuss if it should have divisional play in basketball, as Rutgers and Maryland are set to join the league in 2014 to make the conference a 14-team entity. My advice: The Big Ten should take a lead from the other major conferences—ACC (12 teams), SEC (14), Pac-12 (12), old Big East (15), Atlantic 10 (16)–and not have divisional play.

A quartet of Big Ten softball teams were selected to the NCAA tourney, it was announced late Sunday night. Big Ten regular-season champ Michigan earned the No. 8 national seed and Nebraska the No. 14, while Minnesota and Big Ten tourney champ Wisconsin also made the field.

For the first time since 2005, Wisconsin is headed to the NCAA softball tournament. The fourth-seeded Badgers dropped Minnesota, 9-3, Sunday in the Big Ten tourney title game to earn the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAAs. Watch all of the best highlights from the title game here. Also, catch up on the entire tourney at the bottom of this post.

Wisconsin is headed to its fourth NCAA softball tournament, and its first since 2005, thanks to Sunday’s 9-3 victory over rival Minnesota in the Big Ten tourney title game. See the 2013 Big Ten Softball All-Tournament Team and catch up on all the tourney action from the four-day event in this post.

Saturday’s Big Ten softball tournament semifinals featured a pair of highlight catches. The first one came in the first game, when Wisconsin third baseman Michelle Mueller battled the sun, wind and fence down the left-field line to make the grab; the second one happened in the second game, when Nebraska catcher Taylor Edwards went to her knees to record the out near the backstop. Which catch was better? Watch both here and vote in this post.