Conference Realignment Thread v. 2016

[Fieldhouse Flyer]

Shortest-lived mascot in NCAA history?

Billiken Backlash: SLU Will Redesign Mascot Again - St. Louis Post-Dispatch - October 5, 2016

[GoldenWarrior11]

http://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/big-12-expansion-losing-momentum-no-grant-of-rights-extension-ranking-candidates/

This week's edition of As the World Turns in the Big 12. Sounds like they are pumping the brakes BIG TIME on expansion. To me it looks like Texas and OKie will bail as soon as they can figure out an escape plan. The recent trend is to not pay full exit fees, so you never know. (Maryland paid $31.4M instead of $52.2M and Rutgers $11.5M instead of $15M.)

Texas and Oklahoma will announce they are leaving in 2022-2023 (right before the expiration of the Big 12 Grant of Rights). Both Texas and Oklahoma will be able to choose where it would like to go (PAC-12, B1G or SEC), with the caveat that they will not be able to bring along their little brothers (Texas Tech and OK State). My belief is that Oklahoma will go to the SEC along with West Virginia. Texas will join the ACC as a non-football member, and get a Notre Dame-like scheduling alliance (possibly going to six games instead of five). The PAC-12 would then add Kansas (AAU/Blue Blood Basketball), Texas Tech, Oklahoma State and TCU (for Dallas/football). The B1G would wait to go after Virginia/UNC/Georgia Tech/Florida State again when the ACC GOR expires, so they would remain at 14. Unfortunately, Iowa State, Baylor, and Kansas State get left behind (not unlike UConn, Cincinnati and USF) and are tasked with either joining the American or the MWC.

[_lh]

http://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/big-12-expansion-losing-momentum-no-grant-of-rights-extension-ranking-candidates/

This week's edition of As the World Turns in the Big 12. Sounds like they are pumping the brakes BIG TIME on expansion. To me it looks like Texas and OKie will bail as soon as they can figure out an escape plan. The recent trend is to not pay full exit fees, so you never know. (Maryland paid $31.4M instead of $52.2M and Rutgers $11.5M instead of $15M.)

Texas and Oklahoma will announce they are leaving in 2022-2023 (right before the expiration of the Big 12 Grant of Rights). Both Texas and Oklahoma will be able to choose where it would like to go (PAC-12, B1G or SEC), with the caveat that they will not be able to bring along their little brothers (Texas Tech and OK State). My belief is that Oklahoma will go to the SEC along with West Virginia. Texas will join the ACC as a non-football member, and get a Notre Dame-like scheduling alliance (possibly going to six games instead of five). The PAC-12 would then add Kansas (AAU/Blue Blood Basketball), Texas Tech, Oklahoma State and TCU (for Dallas/football). The B1G would wait to go after Virginia/UNC/Georgia Tech/Florida State again when the ACC GOR expires, so they would remain at 14. Unfortunately, Iowa State, Baylor, and Kansas State get left behind (not unlike UConn, Cincinnati and USF) and are tasked with either joining the American or the MWC.

I think the best thing for all of them is to just stay at 10 forever. Their basketball is great and they are producing playoff level teams every year. Texas can be Texas and still have rivalries that make sense. OU is not really hurt by the LHN and the weaker sisters have no better option. Everyone thinks there will be 4 mega conferences but 5 big time football conferences with the B12 at 10 or 12 with Houston and BYU makes more sense to me.

[David G]

In a nutshell, expansion means more money per school for the Big Twelve, but only in the short run. From a competition standpoint, expansion will likely hurt the league, but if Texas and Oklahoma are planning to leave the conference in 2025 anyway once the grant of rights expires, then why not just go ahead and take the cash now? I seriously doubt they would leave before 2025 because if this really is about money, then why do something that's going to cost a ton when they can just wait a couple of years and pay virtually nothing?

The eight other schools that can't just step into another power league are the ones that need to be fighting expansion. They don't want to be souring the relationship with the networks. The less angry the networks are with the schools, the better off it is for them if htey're faced with negotiating a new TV deal, especially if it's without Texas and Oklahoma.

FWIW, if I had to guess, I think they would both go to the Pac Twelve. In fact, I think both came very close to doing that a few years back. Texas was closely courting the Big Ten as well, from what I understand.

And, who knows what happens with Bedlam, which is a rivalry that I've always enjoyed, especially in hoops.

[admin]

Bringing this back from the dead:

The question three years ago, when the downsized Big East debuted, was this: Could a basketball-driven league survive in a football world?

Villanova answered by winning the NCAA Tournament last April.

The next question, an undercurrent for the conference’s media day Tuesday, is this: How does the Big East capitalize on all the momentum?

The one-word answer: UConn.

Mutual interest in a reunion was widely reported over the summer, and in recent conversations with Gannett New Jersey, multiple people in the know laid out the framework. Here it is:

http://www.app.com/story/sports/college ... /91840616/

[David G]

Bringing this back from the dead:

The question three years ago, when the downsized Big East debuted, was this: Could a basketball-driven league survive in a football world?

Villanova answered by winning the NCAA Tournament last April.

The next question, an undercurrent for the conference’s media day Tuesday, is this: How does the Big East capitalize on all the momentum?

The one-word answer: UConn.

Mutual interest in a reunion was widely reported over the summer, and in recent conversations with Gannett New Jersey, multiple people in the know laid out the framework. Here it is:

http://www.app.com/story/sports/college ... /91840616/

Asking if a basketball centric league can survive in a football driven world is absurd. It's like asking if Hockey East can survive in a football driven world. Of course it can. It's not a football driven world for schools that don't even have football teams.

I for one like the idea of a single division with complete balance. UConn is a great program and they have natural rivals within the Big East, but I'd personally rather see the league stay at ten without them instead of go to eleven with them. Nova just won the national championship, and fifty percent of the league made the NCAA Tournament. You don't need UConn to take you to some mythical next level when you just had a team finish on the highest level that there is.

[Fieldhouse Flyer]

Bringing this back from the dead: http://www.app.com/story/sports/college ... /91840616/

2. UConn isn’t there yet, but the day of reckoning is coming. Still desperate to play in a power football league, the Huskies are angling for a Big 12 invite. By all accounts, that seems like a long shot.

The endgame might be parking its football program in, say, the Mid-American Conference (with Akron, Ohio, Buffalo, Western Michigan, etc.).

The MAC doesn't want football-only members.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/U ... onferences

UMass was effectively kicked out of the MAC football conference after the 2015 season. It was offered full membership, but declined.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nc ... l/6918677/

After two years as a football-only member of the Mid-American Conference, the University of Massachusetts will leave the league in 2015, MAC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher told USA TODAY Sports.

In February 2014, MAC league presidents enacted a clause that started a clock on UMass' membership. According to the clause, UMass could either accept full membership in the MAC or serve only two additional years as a football-only member.

Rather than join the league across all NCAA sports – including basketball, the school's premier athletic program – UMass opted for another two years as a football member before leaving the conference altogether.

If UConn wants to keep a football team on the field, the 11-school non-scholarshipped Pioneer Football League beckons. That might be too much for Connecticut's Governor and state legislators to swallow.

[gtmoBlue]

Paging Mr. JP Schmack. Paging Mr. JP Schmack. Please pickup the white courtesy telephone.

11 members allows for a 7th NCAA bid some years... 12 or 13 allow for a 7th NCAA bid annually. Yes...we don't NEED anyone at this point, but UConn meets most of the criteria - especially the basketball "moving the needle" part. Aw, what the heck...bring 'em on.

Mr. Schmack, please pickup the white courtesy telephone.

anyone seen JP?

[GoldenWarrior11]

St. Bonaventure must have an open gym tonight.

It's just an opinion piece, but the Big 12 does have it's meetings next Monday. It might be far-fetched, but certainly not impossible for a reunion. UConn just beat Cincinnati in football - you'd think that would convince them they belong in the B1G/ACC/SEC, not the Big East lol.

[David G]

Paging Mr. JP Schmack. Paging Mr. JP Schmack. Please pickup the white courtesy telephone.

11 members allows for a 7th NCAA bid some years... 12 or 13 allow for a 7th NCAA bid annually. Yes...we don't NEED anyone at this point, but UConn meets most of the criteria - especially the basketball "moving the needle" part. Aw, what the heck...bring 'em on.

Mr. Schmack, please pickup the white courtesy telephone.

anyone seen JP?

I'm not trying to come off as some sort of Money Ball smartass here, but you're way wrong about this and so is everyone else who thinks this way.

To assume you're going to get seven bids annually if you go out to twelve is assuming a lot.

Look at the Big Twelve. They only got seven teams in once with a twelve team format. Between 1996 and 2011, when they had twelve teams, they only did it once. It was also the only time they managed to get more than half the teams in.

As a ten team conference, which they've been for the past four years, the league got 6, 5, 7, and 7 teams in. The math is too boring and too lengthy to get into, but leagues that play more than ten OOC games, win upwards of 70 percent of them, and then play a double round robin once they're in league play, are going to boost themselves in the RPI and in the power ratings a lot more than a bloated league will who doesn't play a double round robin. Please just accept that as fact. Just look at the results. Three out of four years they got more than half the league in, and never got fewer than half the teams in. They only did that once when they were at twelve teams.

The magic number for a conference is actually nine. Look at the ACC. Since going from nine to twelve (and then 15), they only managed to get more than half the teams in twice. Between 1994 and 2004, they had 5, 4, 6, 6, 5, 3, 3, 6, 4, 4, 6. That's getting more than half the teams in more than half the time, and 2/3rds of the teams in forty percent of the time. I think the RPI numbers and power rating numbers would be higher today because all nine teams would have played two extra OOC games, and probably raised the total of overall wins even more.

I know people think bigger is better, but it really isn't. Four pizzas for ten people is not more pizza per person than three pizzas for five people. Even when you're adding strong programs, which the ACC did, you're still going to get a lower percentage of teams in more often than not if your OOC winning percentage is what the current Big East's typically is.

So, my advice is to stay at ten. Nothing against UConn specifically. It's just the math says you shouldn't add anyone even if it's a good program.