The ACC-Big Ten Challenge is closing its 11th edition Wednesday night, and the conference from the Midwest has yet to win it. Five times — including last year — the Big Ten has come up just a game short. Someday the National League will lose the All-Star Game to the American League again, and someday the ACC will fall to the Big Ten. Could that day be today? The oddsmakers put it at just about even money.

The two conferences enter the last day of the challenge with three wins each. The Big Ten took a 3-0 lead in the series when it swept the 7:00 games on Tuesday night, Purdue pulling away from Wake Forest, 70-59, and Northwestern going down to Raleigh and schooling NC State, 65-53. This after Penn State squeaked past Virginia in Charlottesville on Monday night.

The ACC, though, is a resilient league, and the later tip-offs on Tuesday all went its way. Maryland visited hapless Indiana and won by 12. North Carolina hosted Michigan State in a rematch of April’s national title game, and the Tar Heels prevailed again behind Ed Davis, 89-82. Iowa hung with Virginia Tech for most of Tuesday’s final game, but the Hokies slipped away at the end, 70-64. Read More »