Explaining the science, preparation behind USC and UCLA’s Big Ten travel planning

LOS ANGELES — Her head coach, USC women’s volleyball senior Lindsey Miller laughed, loves “Top Gun.” Loves anything related to planes, really.

So it made sense, she surmised, that Brad Keller would be fascinated by the concept of “seat pitch.”

He had never flown charter in all his nearly three decades of coaching volleyball. But given the cost and distance and time that’d be spent flying commercial to new Big Ten road-game locations like Purdue, he and his coaching staff had lobbied...