You're surprised to hear about ESPN's role in expansion?

This post can also be found at Beyond the Arc.

Like we've said over and over again, expansionocalypse is far from over.

For those that have been out of the loop over the Columbus Day weekend, here's a quick recap: TCU is expected to officially join the Big 12 today after receiving an offer from the league late last week; Missouri, who has been flirting with everyone from the Big 10 to the SEC over the last year, is trying to decide whether or not they will stay in the Big 12 and, more importantly, whether or not they actually have an offer from the SEC; and in an effort to try and shore up their league on the football front, the Big East is considering providing offers to Temple and Central Florida as well as Navy, Air Force and Boise State for football only.


Boise State and Air Force in the Big East? So now, not only does the Big 10 have 12 teams and the Big 12 have 10 until Missouri leaves (and who can forget about the 14 team Atlantic 10), but the Big East now has teams that are farther west that current members of the Pac-12 and the West Coast Conference. Because that makes sense.

But the most talked about information to come out this weekend came from this article in the Boston Globe. For folks that live in the Northeast -- particularly folks like me, who spent the weekend in the state of Connecticut -- the big news from that story was Gene DeFilippo, the athletic director at Boston College, freely admitting that he and his school had been the driving force in the ACC adding Pitt and not UConn, whom the league originally wanted.

"We didn't want them in," DeFilippo told the Globe. "It was a matter of turf. We wanted to be the New England team."

Perhaps more interesting, however, was a different quote DeFilippo gave Mark Blaudschun where he all-but confirms what realignment conspiracy theorists have been stating all along.

"We always keep our television partners close to us," DeFilippo said. "You don't get extra money for basketball. It's 85 percent football money. TV - ESPN - is the one who told us what to do. This was football; it had nothing to do with basketball."

Why did this take people by surprise? Look, we've known all along that the juggling of conference alliances has been about nothing more than the money that can be generated by football and their TV contracts. Last summer, the ACC negotiated a deal with ESPN to televise their games that was worth $1.86 billion over 12 years, or $155 million annually which, more or less, comes to about $13 million for each school. With Pitt and Syracuse joining the league, the ACC will be able to renegotiate with ESPN for a bigger deal. And you're surprised that folks at the ACC had some communication with ESPN over who would be the most valuable addition?

This entire process is about money. The ACC did their due diligence in finding out from the folks that they have a television contract with which additions would make their (the ACC's) product the most valuable. And, for the record, you're naive if you believe this is the first time that ESPN has pulled some strings and influenced a change in the conference landscape.

That's why it seems so hypocritical when the folks at ESPN criticize schools for switching conferences. The company that signs their year-end bonus checks is the one that plays the role of Adam Smith's invisible hand.

Yeesh. Is anyone else sick of this yet? I'm going back to sleep. Wake me up when its over.
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The addition of Pitt to the ACC could help spark old rivalry

Conference realignment kills rivalries.

Syracuse and Georgetown? Goodbye. Texas and Texas A&M? Thank you for your time. Pitt and West Virginia? You cannot use our backyard anymore. Sure, the prevailing though is that "fans will get over it" and that "new rivalries will be born". But do you think Jim Boeheim will want to waste one of his valuble non-conference games by traveling to Georgetown every other year?

Now, it is likely that "The Backyard Brawl" does continue in some fashion. Even if West Virginia stays put, this rivalry is too passionate to dissolve. The profiles of the two schools are too similar to just discontinue competition between each other.

But the addition of the Panthers to the ACC could help spark another non-conference rivalry that has been dormant for some time.

The last time Pittsburgh and Penn State played on the hardwood was 2005. From 2000 to 2005 they played five times, with the Panthers winning four of five. Despite this, The Nittany Lions still hold the edge 78-68 in a series that dates back to 1905. In fact, the two schools played each other every year from 1935 to 1982. But since '82, in which Penn State won in double-overtime 52-46, the schools have faced just seven times, including the 1992 N.I.T game .

Pittsburgh and Penn State are the two largest universities in the state of Pennsylvania, separated by just 140 miles. While Pitt's success comes on the court and Penn State the gridiron, a rebirth of this rivalry in both sports would be a good thing for the state, the universities and the conferences.

Why?

What better way to welcome Pittsburgh to the ACC/Big-10 Challenge than with a tilt against their in-state rivals. Of all the cross-conference challenges that exists, the ACC/Big-Ten Challenge is the only one that is held in high regards by the basketball community. Yes, it's true, the Big East/SEC Invitational is trying to get revitalized, but while Pitt/Tennessee might be a great game, it's nothing more than that. Pitt/Penn State would be a story, an atmosphere, a rivalry.

A meeting between the two schools in the Panther's first ACC/Big-Ten Challenge could revitalize a rivalry that existed for nearly half a century but hasn't been relevant for quite a while.
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Conference realignment isn't over, its just on pause

If you follow the right people on twitter, than the last four or five days have been wild.

With every article that is published, every source that is quoted, and every theory that is floated comes a wave of speculation, analysis, and rumor-mongering. And its non-stop. Expansionocalypse is moving so quickly that in a matter of hours, the entire landscape changes. Trying to keep up to date is utterly exhausting.

The good news, however, is that late on Tuesday night, it looks like we've reached a resting point. For starters, the Pac-12 announced that they would not be expanding.

"After careful review we have determined that it is in the best interests of our member institutions, student-athletes and fans to remain a 12-team conference," Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said in a statement. "While we have great respect for all of the institutions that have contacted us, and certain expansion proposals were financially attractive, we have a strong conference structure and culture of equality* that we are committed to preserve. With new landmark TV agreements and plans to launch our innovative television networks, we are going to focus solely on these great assets, our strong heritage and the bright future in front of us."


(*Culture of equality, huh? Was that a cheap shot at Texas and the Longhorn Network? Methinks that's a yes.)

There's more. The Big East's seven football schools met and made a commitment to the conference while deciding to actively pursue replacements for the departed Pitt and Syracuse.

"Our membership met this evening," the Big East said in a statement, "and we are committed as a conference to recruit top level BCS caliber institutions with strong athletic and academic histories and traditions. We have been approached by a number of such institutions and will pursue all of our options to make the Big East Conference stronger than it has ever been in both basketball and football."


The reason I call this a resting point as opposed to a stopping point is that there are still decisions to be made. First and foremost, the SEC needs a 14th. As of Tuesday afternoon, most believed that Missouri was the SEC's top target after West Virginia had their application denied. But Missouri still wants the Big 12 to work out, so with the Pac-12's decision to stay at 12 teams, Missouri is forced into a holding pattern. They don't want to be responsible for the downfall of the conference and they want a piece of Texas A&M's exit fee while avoiding having to pay the fee themselves.

Second of all, both the Big 12 and the Big East have to find some level of stability. Its no secret that UConn wants out, and that notion was reinforced on Tuesday when a source informed the AP that the Huskies still want to follow Syracuse and Pitt to the ACC. Rutgers may also accept an invite from the ACC if the league wants to go to 16 schools, while Notre Dame to the ACC was also floated today. And even if the league somehow manages to keep all seven football playing members on board, they will still need to add at least one football-playing member to retain FBS status.

What does the Big 12 do to promote stability? Can Texas and Oklahoma ever learn to get along? With schools like Baylor and Iowa State be ok with the money Texas brings in from the Longhorn Network and unequal revenue sharing? Will the conference add BYU? What about snagging TCU from the Big East? Will anyone actually want to submit themselves to this kind of squabbling, in-fighting and sibling rivalry?

This is far from over.

And even if we reach a stale-mate this fall, where the team's shifting leagues are forced into a holding pattern, will that last? Is there enough trust between league presidents and conference commissioners to prevent another round expansionocalypse next year? Or next month? Or tomorrow?

I doubt it.
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With conference realignment, just be honest with us

I'm not as angry about conference realignment as some folks are.

Yes, it sucks that some of the best traditions in the collegiate ranks -- the Texas-Texas A&M rivalry, the Georgetown-Syracuse rivalry, the Big East Tournament, possibly the NCAA Tournament -- will vanish in the coming years, but I'm less pissed off than I am accepting of our fate. We've known that the end game of the shifting of the tectonic plates would be four superconferences for almost two years now. If we can make it through without losing the NCAA Tournament to the secession of those four conferences, than I think that everyone -- even the folks at the Baylor's and the Villanova's and the Louisville's of the world -- can say that this round of realignment wasn't too bad.

What does piss me off, however -- and where I agree with both Dodd and Doyel, the scribes of the two articles linked above -- is the constant lies and efforts to save face by claiming that these changes were precipitated by anything other than money.

The latest comes from Syracuse Chancellor Nancy Cantor: "I would say that our concerns are really forward looking with respect to the ACC. The issues for us is that we have increasingly strong Olympic sports across the board, women sports -- the ACC is a wonderful match for that for us. And we really are obviously very excited about that."


Get the fuggoutta here. Seriously. Get the fuggout.

Olympic Sports? Women's sports?

Nancy -- can I call you Nancy? -- you don't care about the success of the Olympic Sports or your women's teams. Nothing about your move to the ACC has anything to do with how well your women's volleyball team will do taking mid-week trips to Miami and Tallahassee, or how well your shotputters stack up against the rosters of North Carolina and Duke. Nancy, we know this. And we don't believe the garbage you are spewing. Just be honest with us. We can handle Syracuse making a move for more money and status because its something we all would have done.*

(*For anyone that disagrees with that last statement, let me ask you a question: do you drive a Prius? Why not? Would you be willing to take public transportation or ride a bike to work? Again, why not? Is it a status thing? A comfort thing? Living further away from work, driving distance, saves you some money? If you do drive a pick-up or a mercedes, than you aren't doing your part to try and stave off global warming, which is a much bigger deal than anything that could possibly happen in college sports. But you criticize schools for choosing comfort and status when switching conferences while ignoring the greater good of college sports? Sounds hypocritical to me.)

Its mind-boggling to me that Cantor can claim that non-revenue sports are what drove this decision. Syracuse is one of the few schools where the basketball program is actually more profitable than the football program. According to a study done by the website The Business of College Sports, the Syracuse basketball team generated $18,309,470 in revenue with a profit of $10,223,094. That ranks them as the 41st most profitable team -- including football and basketball -- in the country and the sixth highest basketball program. I guess it pays to play in a place that can hold 34,000 people and be the most popular sports team in New York once you get outside of Westchester.

The Syracuse football program, on the other hand, generated just $3,851,951 in profits -- less than Penn State's basketball team -- in 2009-2010.

Digest that for a second. Syracuse basketball is the sixth most profitable program in the sport. They are (were?) a founding member of the best basketball conference in the country. Their iconic, bespectacled and balding head coach and his infamous battles with John Thompson Jr's Hoya Paranoia teams is the stuff of legend, a rivalry that helped build the foundation of what the Big East became.


And all of that is getting tossed to the curb with the decision to move to the ACC.

I'm not telling you this to ridicule Syracuse for their choice. Like I said, its a decision that few of us will be able to criticize without being hypocritical.

What I'm trying to say is that the decision to move to the ACC is being done without regard for the Syracuse basketball program, its history, its tradition and its rivalries. If the people making these decisions are ignoring the cost on their school's -- and their region's -- most popular sports teams to chase more profit from football, what makes you think that the fate of a single non-revenue sport had any influence whatsoever?

What realignment has taught us is that people, in the end, just don't care enough about college basketball.

But Cantor expects us to believe they care enough about Women's Golf to set the demise of the Big East in motion?

Get the fuggoutta here, Nancy.
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I'll miss the Big East, but college basketball will live on

Let's face it: the Big East as we know it is done. Its over. No more Big Monday, no more Syracuse-Georgetown home-and-home's, no more five-day runs through the Big East Tournament.

And that sucks.

People that don't live in the Northeast don't truly understand what Big East basketball was to us. We may not have tailgated as hard, we may not have been quite as delusional as fans, we certainly didn't pack 100,000 people into the arenas to see the games, but the passion and the love affair with the sport ran just as deep as SEC football in the south. Big East basketball was Lou Carnesecca and John Thompson, Jr, Jim Calhoun and Jim Boeheim. It was Patrick Ewing and Chris Mullin to Kerry Kittles and Ray Allen to Gerry McNamara and Kemba Walker, and every hero in between.

The Big East was everything that was right about college basketball. But the writing was on the wall -- the Big East simply thrived in the wrong sport.


With so many of the founding members of the Big East playing football below the Big East level -- Villanova, Georgetown, St. John's, Providence -- it was only a matter of time before someone made the move. Many believed that Syracuse and Pitt were eventually going to be headed to the Big Ten. The surprise of this tweet on Friday night from Pete Thamel wasn't that the Big East had two members defecting, its that those members were defecting to the ACC.*

(*Frankly, we shouldn't be surprised. With the lack of football strength in the Big East, it became the ACCDL [ACC Developmental League, thank you very much] over the past six years. The last five teams that the conference has added -- Miami, Virginia Tech, Boston College, Syracuse, and Pitt -- all came from the Big East.)

As disappointing as this move is for Big East hoops fans, college basketball will live on. Hell, it may end up being better. If the rumors are true and UConn does follow Syracuse and Pitt into the ACC, that conference immediately becomes the most powerful in the country. Think about this -- since Michigan State's national title in 2000, eight of the last 11 national champions will be playing in the ACC, and that doesn't including UConn's title in 1999. You don't think it will be fun to see North Carolina and Duke have to do battle with UConn, Syracuse and Pitt every single season? If the powers that be opt to bring in a school like Louisville or West Virginia instead of Rutgers**, the league will be even stronger.

(**I seriously don't understand the love-fest with Rutgers. They stink at football, they have never been good at basketball [although Mike Rice seems to have that trending towards change], and no one in the New York market cares about them.)

I'm not naive. I know that conference alignment in college sports in a fluid thing. These shifts happen, and for some schools and leagues its for the better. For the Villanova's and the Georgetown's and the rest of the Big East (ahem, TCU), its for the worse.

But I'm also sentimental and nostalgic.

I'll miss the Big East Tournament and Big Mondays. I'll always fondly remember the rivalry between Syracuse and Georgetown. I'll never forget moments like DeJuan Blair's body-slam of Hasheem Thabeet in 2009; or Ray Allen's prayer to beat Georgetown in the 1996 Big East Tournament; or the late-game heroics of Gerry McNamara in the 2006 Big East Tournament; or, simply, the sixth-overtime.

Most of all, I'll miss those late-nights in the Garden. Every college basketball fan has to have the Big East Tournament on their bucket list.

Its an unbelievable experience.

And it may come to an end, as we know it, in March.
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Conference realignment and how it affects college hoops

So you know how everyone has been saying and writing all this stuff about Texas A&M planning on leaving the Big 12 and joining the SEC?

Well, today it became about as official as its going to get. Texas A&M announced that they were leaving the Big 12, effective June 30th, 2012, so long as they get accepted by another conference. And you better believe they know they are going to get accepted by the SEC. Would you leave a good job because you no longer get along with your co-workers if you didn't have assurances you'd be getting hired elsewhere?

Didn't think so.


Most believe that A&M leaving the Big 12 is the next step towards college sports breaking into four 16 team super-conferences, a process that was triggered last summer when Texas got their own TV Network (and all the money that comes with an ESPN affiliation) and Nebraska and Colorado bolted for the Big 10 and Pac-12, respectively. The next step? It could be Virginia Tech heading to the SEC. Or Missouri and Kansas bolting for the Big East. Or Texas jumping ship and joining the Pac-12 with three Pac-12 counterparts.

I don't think anyone knows exactly what happens next or when it will happen, but I think most believe that the end-game -- be it five, ten or 25 years down the road -- is the Big 12 completely disintegrating with the Big East and ACC fighting to the death over the scraps while simultaneously defending themselves against looting from the Big Ten and SEC.

In the process, the college sports that we know and love will forever be the worse for wear.

Its ironic that the Big East basketball schedule was released on the same day as Texas A&M announced their withdrawal from the Big 12, because the Big East is the perfect example of why 16-18 team super-conferences simply don't work. Even playing an 18 game schedule, each program will only get home-and-home's with three opponents this season and only two opponents starting next season when TCU joins the fold.

Think about that for a second. While we luck out in getting UConn and Syracuse playing twice, the Orange only play Georgetown -- which is one of the greatest rivalries in all of college basketball -- once this season. Imagine if the ACC expands to the point that Duke and UNC only play once a year, or if the SEC gets large enough that Florida and Tennessee only get one crack at Kentucky each season?

What's more, the two of the favorites to win the conference -- Pitt and UConn -- will only play once this year, on the last day of the regular season. But who cares about that when Louisville plays DePaul twice and Villanova gets two games against South Florida. And we can rest easy knowing that the greatest rivalry of them all -- Rutgers and Seton Hall -- will be played twice this year.

Its head-to-head games like that that allowed the Big East to turn down a billion-dollar TV deal, right?

Its a shame, really.

Historic rivalries like Texas A&M and Texas will be destroyed by hurt feelings and greed.

But hey, its all in the name of amateurism!
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How will Texas A&M's move to the SEC affect hoops?

This post can also be found at Beyond The Arc.

Its not a secret what the end game is in conference realignment.

At this point, it appears as if four 16 or 18 team super-conferences are unavoidable. With the billion-dollar -- and, yes, I do mean billion -- TV contracts that those conferences are going to generate, its difficult to imagine a scenario where, at best, the power conference schools gain an even larger advantage over the mid-majors or, at worst, the four super-conferences secede from the NCAA.

As both Gary Parrish of CBSSports.com and Eamonn Brennan of ESPN.com wrote yesterday, that is a very bad thing for college basketball and will, in all likelihood, permanently change the NCAA Tournament for the worse. What makes the situation even more frustrating is that, despite providing a massive portion of the NCAA's budget with its 14-year, $10.8 billion contract with CBS, the NCAA Tournament is a complete afterthought. These college commissioners and school presidents are going to ruin the sport we love and the world's greatest sporting event and they simply don't care.


But, hopefully, that inevitability won't happen for a number of years.

Until then, what we should be concerned about is how Texas A&M, the SEC, and the Big 12/10/9/whatever will be affected if the Aggies do happen to jump ship. There's no doubt in my mind that A&M will immediately become the best basketball program in the SEC West. While they haven't had a ton of postseason success over the last six years, in the words of the esteemable DJ Khaled, all the Aggies do is win. Every year, they seem end up with around 24 wins overall, 10 or 11 wins in league play, and a five in the NCAA Tournament regardless of who they lost the year before.

Now imagine what will happen when the Aggies get to play LSU, Ole Miss and Auburn twice every year.

This past spring, Mark Turgeon left College Station to take over for Gary Williams at Maryland. He was replaced by Billy Kennedy, whose hiring was considered a homerun when it happened and now looks even better. Kennedy is a southerner through and through. He was born and raised in New Orleans, he coached at just about every school there is in Louisiana and he spent the past five years coaching at Murray State in Kentucky.

"It's premature to talk about it, but I'm more familiar with the SEC since most of my players have been from Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama," Kennedy told Andy Katz of ESPN.com.

Kennedy should still be able to recruit Texas as well, particularly if the Big 12 disintegrates. College Station is about two hours from Houston and a little more than three hours from Dallas. Its the second best hoops program in the state, and depending on where Baylor, Texas Tech, TCU and even Houston end up when all the pieces stop spinning, the Aggies may end up being the only other high-major program in the state, behind the Longhorns.

Kennedy brought in ace recruiter Glenn Cyprien as his associate head coach. He's already earned commitments from top 100 players in the Class of 2012 (J-Mychal Reese from Houston) and 2013 (Kendrick Nunn from Chicago).

As far as SEC hoops is concerned, its continuing to get stronger. Alabama is on the rise under Anthony Grant, potentially being a top 15 team nationally this season, while Arkansas should experience a resurgence under Mike Anderson. The SEC East is stacked, with Kentucky and Florida sitting atop the league and Georgia, Tennessee and Vanderbilt sitting a notch below them. Adding another top 25 program to the weaker western division will only help the league's balance.

The Aggies football team may end up being permanently mediocre playing in the same division as the likes of LSU and Alabama, but their basketball program should be able to thrive.
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Report: TCU accepts invite to the Big East

News straight from the "you have got to be kidding me department":

Texas Christian University has accepted an invitation to become an all-sports member to the Big East Conference, industry sources told FanHouse. The Horned Frogs will join the league beginning on July 1, 2012 and begin play in the Big East in the 2012-13 school year.

Ugh.

This is not good for us, us being college hoops fans.

I understand why the Big East needs TCU for football, and why TCU joining the Big East is good for them.

But now, not only will the Big East expand to 17 (seven-fucking-teen!!!!) teams for basketball, it further dilutes the bottom of the conference. We already have DePaul, Rutgers, Providence, and company down there and now the Big East is adding a program whose best season in the past decade was an 8-8 finish in the MWC. And that was their best by a long shot. TCU has barely been considered competitive in the conference.

And they are coming to the Big East?

Who will the next addition be? Memphis? Central Florida? Villanova moving their football program up?

Can the Big East even maintain a 17 team basketball league? It is already too big. Another team will just throw off the balance even more.

How long before the conference splits up into football schools and non-football schools? Can teams like Georgetown and Villanova (if their football program doesn't move up) still maintain nationally relevant basketball programs if that does happen?

If this report is true (and I believe it is, Brett McMurphy is a very good reporter -- UPDATE: Jeff Goodman and the NY Post are now confirming the report), its terrible for Big East basketball.

Like I said, Ugh.

I hate the NCAA more and more everyday.
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Conference Expansion continues

Although this time, its not quite as drastic.

The WAC has announced that it will add three teams to offset the loss of Boise State, Fresno State, and Nevada beginning in 2012-12 -- Denver University, Texas-San Antonio, and Texas State.

Denver plays football at the FCS level, meaning that their football program will not be joining the WAC. This means that the conference has nine basketball teams and eight football teams, a reason that many expect Montana to join the WAC as well. The Grizzlies, who currently have a powerhouse FCS level football program, would have to move up to the FBS.

The rest of this post can be found at Beyond the Arc.

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Colorado to leave the Big XII after this year; the Big XII's schedule will be the toughest in the country

On Tuesday, the Big XII announced that Colorado will, in fact, be leaving the conference after the 2010-2011 season, joining the Pac-10 as of July 1st, 2011. To do so, Colorado must pay the Big XII $6.863 million. Nebraska, who will also be leaving the Big XII at the same time to join the Big Ten, will be paying the conference $9.255 million, a number that will drop to $8.755 million should they make a BCS bowl.

As far as Big XII basketball is concerned, the conference is jettisoning two of the worst programs. Nebraska finished last in the league in 2009-2010, while Colorado has traditionally been near the bottom, although they should actually be able to compete for a tournament spot this season.

That means that next year the Big XII will be able to play a true round-robin conference schedule.

Think about that. For the remaining Big XII members, every season they get Kansas twice. They get Kansas State twice. They get Baylor and Texas and Missouri twice. Hell, even Iowa State, the leagues only remaining pushover traditionally, will be adding Chris Allen and Royce White in 2011.

As far as I'm concerned, the Big XII will be the toughest conference to play in come 2011.

I'm not saying it will be the best conference, mind you. It was away too early to make a prediction like that. All signs indicate that the Big Ten, the Big East, and the ACC will be very good that year as well, we don't know who leaves for the NBA after this season, and a number of big-time recruits are still deciding on where they will attend college.

But the Big XII's league schedule will be brutal. Let's say that six teams make the NCAA Tournament from the Big XII in 2011-2012, and two more are in tournament contention. That means that even if you are one of those teams that made the tournament, 14 of your 18 league games will be against quality opponents. Its worse for the teams out of tournament contention, as they will play 16 of their 18 leagues games against very good competition.

Now I will admit that it is a bit optimistic to think that six teams from a Big XII as tough as this can make the dance, but look at the programs that are left. Who from that group can you write off?

Iowa State, sure. Texas Tech? Well, they were in tournament contention for much of last season and have been to two dances in the last six years. Oklahoma? They made an Elite 8 in 2009 before last year's collapse. Texas A&M? Oklahoma State? Those teams have routinely made the tournament the last few years.

The Big East is loaded, but they are also top heavy. There are usually at least four or five teams at the bottom of the league with no chance of going to the tournament. And, with 16 teams in the league, you only play home-and-home's with three teams. For the most part, you only get the Syracuse's and Villanova's and Georgetown's once a year.

The same can be said for the ACC, or the Big Ten.

I'm not here to argue that the Big XII is going to be the best conference, but its schedule will be the toughest to play.

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Utah receives an invite from the Pac-10

Its not a surprise in the least, but today we got word that Utah will, in fact, be the 12th team invited into the Pac-10 conference. The two schools are schedule to join the conference for the 2012 season, but many expect Utah and Colorado to push for inclusion beginning in 2011.

Now that that is over, the next logical question becomes how does the Pac-12 split up their conference? Well, we may have gotten that answer from the Denver Post this afternoon:

Playing in a south division instead of a north with the Bay Area, Oregon and Washington schools was a must for Colorado to accept an invitation. Its largest out-of-state alumni base is in southern California.

"That is a huge boost for us," [Colorado athletic director Mike] Bohn said. "The southern division for the University of Colorado provides many opportunities that are keys to reaching our alumni to our recruiting and to enhance media exposure that connects best to the Denver market."

So there you have it. The Pac-10/Pac-12 North is going to consist of Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State, Stanford, and Cal. The Pac-10/Pac-12 South will be Colorado, Utah, USC, UCLA, Arizona, and Arizona State.

The only quirk left to figure out is the schedule. For basketball, the Pac-10 had arguably the most beautiful conference schedule. 10 teams each with a logical regional traveling partner. 18 conference games, with each team playing a double round robin. It just worked so perfectly.

With 12 teams in two divisions, the conference has two choices as far as I can tell. They can do what the SEC does, playing each team within their division in a home-and-home, while rotating between home and away for the interdivisional games.

But that is only 16 games. If they want to keep it at 18, then every three years, the league will rotate who makes an interdivisional home-and-home trip. This second method would actually work out better. When Pac-10 schools travel, they travel with partners. So, for example, the way it has worked is that on a Thursday, Oregon will play at Washington while Oregon State plays at Washington State. On Saturday, they switch, and Oregon heads to Washington State with Oregon State will play at Washington.

With the 16 game format, some teams would be forced to play nine road games while others got nine home games, unless the league did away with travel partners. In the 18 game format, that number could be balanced out. For example, the Arizona schools would play a home-and-home with the Washington schools, take a road trip to the Oregon school, and then play host to the Bay Area schools.

Anyway, worrying about all of that is a long way off. Conference play with Utah and Colorado included won't for at least another 18 months.

The important thing is that -- at least for the time being -- conference realignment seems to have finally come to a close ...

For now.
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Expansionocalypse is over ... for now

And we're done!

After all of that talk about the collapse of college sports and all of the wasted words worrying about the inevitability of four 16 team superconferences, Texas came to their senses and ended the realignment madness. For the second time this year, a college basketball doomsday scenario ends without much more than a whimper. If you forget, a 96 team supertournament was a certainty back in April.

So where do we stand now?

• Colorado makes a move to the Pac-10, becoming the 11th school in the conference. (One can only wonder if the Buffaloes expected the Big XII to collapse, as they will now be forced to pay a $6-8 million fee to the Big XII for leaving. They couldn't afford a $3 million buyout for their football coach.) Most believe the Pac-10 will add one more team, likely Utah, in order to get to 12 teams and add a conference championship game in football.
  
• Nebraska heads to the Big Ten Te-leven Te-welve, joining a league that seems to be more their style in both basketball and football. The Big Ten Te-leven Te-welve could still create ripples by adding some Big East teams, but it seems like the general consensus is that they will stand pat for now.
  
• Boise State makes the move to the MWC, which would have been great if the Big XII collapsed. As it is, Utah's move will make it all the less likely that the MWC with get a BCS-automatic qualifier, which is what the league and Boise State were gunning for.
  

The effect this has on college basketball is negligible. Nebraska won two league games last year and now heads to the one league that may be better than the Big XII. Colorado actually has a bit of basketball pedigree (Chauncey Billups, anyone?) and with the move to the Pac-10, Alec Burks, Cory Higgins, and company may actually be able to compete. Having said that, this is still a team that has gone 13 years without an NCAA Tournament victory. Boise State was a mediocre team in the WAC. Enough said.

The irony is all of this?

Losing Nebraska and Colorado has turned the Big XII X into the toughest college basketball conference in the country. According to Ken Pomeroy, if Nebraska and Colorado had not been a member of the league last season, the 2009-2010 version of the Big XII would have been the strongest conference since the 2003-2004 ACC, which featured two Final Four teams (Duke, Georgia Tech), the 2005 national champion (North Carolina), and three other teams (Maryland, Wake Forest, and NC State) that finished the season ranked.

Five Big XII X teams will be ranked in the preseason -- Kansas, Kansas State, Baylor, Texas, and Missouri. Two more -- Texas A&M and Oklahoma State -- were ranked much of last season, and have been a constant presence in the NCAA Tournament this decade. Oklahoma struggled last season, but the Sooners shouldn't be down for too long under Jeff Capel. Only two of the ten teams -- Texas Tech and Iowa State -- would be surprises is they made the NCAA Tournament.

How many leagues can say that?

What makes this new Big XII X even better is that, like the Pac-10 prior to the addition of Colorado, we will get a double round robin in league play. That means every year, Texas and Kansas will play twice. Missouri and Kansas will play twice. Kansas and Kansas State will play twice. A balanced schedule in the country's toughest, most balanced conference? This is going to be an entertaining league to watch and follow come 2012.

When it comes down to it, the real winners in this deal are the fans. Fans of the five Big XII X schools that would have been left without a conference. Fans of Kansas, one of the most storied basketball programs of all time that would have been left out in the cold. Fans of the Big East, which could have grown into a 20 team megaconference.

Anyway, I've had enough of this expansion talk. Before I (hopefully) leave it for good, here is some reaction from around the internet:


Pete Thamel, NY Times: Texas's 11th-hour demands to the Pac-10 broke down the talks. Texas wanted to keep its lucrative local television rights and also asked for "extra sweetener" in revenue sharing, according to the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the talks.

"It was unacceptable," the official said. "The talks broke down."


Andy Katz, ESPN.com: An NCAA source with direct knowledge of what occurred told ESPN.com that the aggressiveness of the Pac-10 caused various factions of the collegiate sports world to coalesce. They then worked to slow and try to stop the pace of moves that would have left a number of schools searching for a new conference home.

The source said the people involved were business executives, conference commissioners, athletic directors, network executives with ties throughout college athletics, administrators at many levels throughout the NCAA membership and a "fair number of them without a dog in the hunt."


Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott: “University of Texas President Bill Powers has informed us that the 10 remaining schools in the Big 12 Conference intend to stay together. We are excited about the future of the Pac-10 Conference and we will continue to evaluate future expansion opportunities under the guidelines previously set forth by our Presidents and Chancellors.”


Andy Staples, SI.com: The attached white paper, obtained by SI.com through a public records request to the University of Colorado, contains many of the same points Beebe made Monday as he worked with school officials to salvage the conference. In the paper, Beebe predicted that a network would pay more to televise Big 12 football games. Fox promised to do just that. Beebe also predicted that radical realignment could have serious consequences for college sports. Powerful outsiders, concerned that the Pac-10's plan to supersize to 16 by pillaging the Big 12 would set off an unstoppable chain of events, helped broker the deal, which may have saved college sports as currently constituted.


Darren Rovell, CNBC: It's quite possible that there's never been a story like this, with so many tentacles, that was so dominated by someone outside the mainstream media. Despite all its sources, ESPN was forced to cite Orangebloods.com until the very end, which included a brief time when the Worldwide Leader reported that the Big XII teams, including Texas, would in fact go to the Pac-10. Orangebloods.com reported that was not the case and turned out to be right.

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Texas A&M to the SEC would only be the first rivalry to disappear

We knew that Texas A&M was interested in the SEC and vice versa thanks to this column from Andy Staples late Wednesday night.

Tonight, we found out from Chip Brown, the reporter for Orangebloods.com that has been owning realignment from Texas' end, just how serious Texas A&M is about going to the SEC. I'm not going to go into to much detail (click the link), but Gene Stallings -- the former Alabama football coach that won the 1992 national title -- is not a regent for Texas A&M an is pushing hard for the Aggies to move east, not west. The SEC wants A&M and Texas, broadening their scope for TV, and recruiting, into the Lone Star State.

The SEC is pushing hard to get both Texas A&M and Texas, but it seems like the Longhorns, along with Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Texas Tech, are firmly committed to joining the Pac 10 11 16 league on the west coast.

This right here is exactly the problem with this expansion.

It would be a travesty if Texas A&M and Texas weren't in the same conference. College sports would be a joke if these two teams didn't play at least once every single season in every single sport.

Look, I understand that history is history, the past is the past, and tradition in this day and age is irrelevant. Nebraska, a charter member of the Big 8 that has been competing against schools like Missouri and Kansas since 1892, is leaving for the Big Ten without looking back because competing for 120 years doesn't matter when bridges have been burned and there is money to be made.

But Nebraska no longer had a real rival in the Big XII in football, and in basketball (which is irrelevant itself) the Cornhuskers were irrelevant.

Texas and Texas A&M matter. The Longhorns are always a top five football team, and have developed into one of the premier college basketball programs. Texas A&M became an offensive powerhouse in football under Mike Leach, and in basketball they are consistently a team that will battle for a top four or five spot in the Big XII standings and an NCAA Tournament berth.

When these two get together, it is must see TV in both sports.

I don't watch college football. I watch Texas play Texas A&M just about every year.

And now, because Texas A&M is tired of playing second fiddle to Texas and because Texas is tired of A&M believing they are allowed to think independently, we may end up losing this rivalry.

Its not the only one.

• Many believe that, once the dust settles, Kansas will end up in the Big East. Kansas State won't. So much for that rivalry.
• Barring a miracle (or a disaster, depending on how you look at it), Missouri and Kansas, and to a lesser degree Kansas and Texas, will likely end up in separate leagues. There goes another must-watch game.
• The Big East isn't in the clear, either. Syracuse and Pitt both have been rumored to be heading to the Big Ten for months, although some of that chatter has cooled of late. If either of those two leave, a lot off great matchups -- Pitt-West Virginia; Syracuse-UConn; Syracuse-Georgetown -- will cease to exist.
• And now, there is some talk of Maryland heading to the Big Ten. Its not that long ago that Duke-Maryland basketball games were almost as good as the Duke-UNC rivalry.
  

Granted, there will also be some great matchups created. Who wouldn't want to see Kansas come to the Big East, especially those of us that actually care about basketball? Texas/Oklahoma and USC should always be entertaining football games.

But there is a difference between entertaining games and rivalry games. If two top ten teams meet up in any sport, it will be intriguing to watch. Who doesn't enjoy two teams competing at the highest level of sport.

In a rivalry game, its not just that the opponents both want to win. The two teams genuinely hate each other, and that is fantastic television. The fans are rowdier, the atmosphere is more frenzied, and the players not only want to leave with a victory, they want to do so while giving their opponent a black eye.

That passion is what college sports is about.

Playing for the love of the game, regardless of what game that is.

Sadly, the conference commissioners apparently let their paper chase blind them of that fact.

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The Expansion Crisis 2010 Day 8: Updated as news comes in

9:48 am: The San Jose Mercury News is reporting that Colorado will accept an invitation to join the Pac-10 today.

Apparently, this will happen regardless of the dealings between Nebraska and the Big Ten.

If, somehow, the Big XII manages to stay together, the Pac-10 will add Utah, which has been reported on quite a bit, in order to become a 12 team league. That means two divisions and a Pac-10 conference championship game.

This stuff happens quickly. I bet we are far from done today. Hit the jump for more:

10:10 am: The Oklahoman is reporting that they were told by a high-ranking OU official to "load up your sun-screen." Its not difficult to see that as a thinly veiled reference to the Pac-10 and the west coast.

It looks like this is happening.

11:40 am: It's offical: Colorado is going to the Pac-10.

12:50 pm: As Stewart Mandel points out, Colorado's move signifies a bad end for the Big XII. The Buffaloes were unable to buyout the contract of football coach Dan Hawkins, but if the Big XII remains once the realignment axe is finished swinging, they will owe a $9 million fee for leaving the conference. If they couldn't afford, or didn't want to pay, the buyout, would they consciously decide to pony up the $9 million?

2:00 pm: The Big XII exodus continues. TMZ Sports is now reporting that Oklahoma State will be the third team to leave the conference, as they join Colorado in heading west. If that's true, then it likely ends all speculation that the four Texas schools were considering the SEC.

4:30 pm: A television station in Kansas City is now reporting that Texas and Texas A&M are headed to the Big Ten, Oklahoma is petitioning to join the SEC, and Oklahoma State will be joining the Pac-10. An earlier report from TMZ comfirmed Oklahoma State accepting an invite from the Pac-10. Texas and Texas A&M would be leaving Baylor and Texas Tech, as well as Missouri, to their own devices.

As far as UT and A&M are concerned, many are not buying the rumor. Chip Brown of Orangebloods.com, who has been absolutely dominating this story, tweeted earlier that any news about the two schools joining the Big Ten "would be news them." So take that scoop with a grain of salt.

5:00 pm: This is not exactly expansion related, but Kansas athletic director Lew Perkins has announced that he will be resigning at the end of the 2010-2011 school year. This comes on the heels of a federal investigation into a scandal involving scalped tickets, a scandal involving athletic equipment, a fight between his football and basketball teams, and the potential for the Jayhawks to be without a conference once realignment is complete.

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Nebraska to the Big Ten by Friday? Let's all take a deep breath...

With conference realignment rumors swirling everywhere you look, the Big XII handed down an ultimatum to Nebraska and Missouri, the two schools most expect to leave: pledge your allegiance by Friday (Ed. Note: new reports say the deadline is the 17th) or move along.

That may very well happen.

The problem? Its the latter.

The Omaha World-Herald is reporting that Nebraska may become a member of the Big Ten as early as Friday. As in two days from now. If Nebraska leaves the Big XII for the Big Ten, that means that Notre Dame will remain as an independent. The Big Ten would likely look to expand to 16 teams, gobbling up the likes of Missouri, Syracuse, Rutgers, Pitt, UConn, or any of the other schools they have been rumored to be interested in. If Missouri and Nebraska leave the Big XII, then most believe the Big XII South joins the Pac-10, meaning the Big XII left with nothing more than a smoldering pile of rubble. If the Big East loses any or all of the football programs listed above, then they will no longer have enough teams to be considered a BCS conference.

We all know what conference expansion is all about.
(photo credit: Its All About Quack)

From there theories abound. The SEC raids the southern ACC schools and gobbles up Kansas. The ACC rakes over the coals and picks up the Big East remnants. The MWC and/or C-USA add a couple of high major programs in an attempt to earn an automatic BCS berth.

In other words, Nebraska could be the first domino to fall, creating a shockwave that forever changes the scope of college athletics.

At least that's what the doomsday predictors will say.

The biggest issue here is whether the Omaha World-Herald's report is simply based off of the opinion of an unnamed "executive at a Big 12 school", or if this opinion is, in fact, fact. Its tough to say with all the theories that are bouncing around and the panic that is gripping the state of Kansas, the University of Colorado, Dan Beebe, and anyone at all associated with Big East basketball.

And therein lies the problem.

Much like the fear that gripped many of us during the talk about NCAA Tournament expansion, the idea that such a drastic change can happen -- that programs like Kansas, Kansas State, West Virginia, Cincinnati, Louisville, and maybe even Notre Dame could be left without a home -- is borderline terrifying. It has us in such a tizzy that a report like this -- with an unnamed source using a quote from Nebraska AD Tom Osbourne as "implicit confirmation" -- sent my twitter feed into hysteria and begins a whole new round of doomsday scenarios, kind of like the first few paragraphs of this very post.

So here is my advice to all of you college sports fans -- take a deep breath. Until someone of importance, i.e. a Jim Delany or a Jack Swarbick or a Tom Osbourne, goes on record as saying "this is going to happen", take all the speculation and innuendo and rumor as just that -- speculation, innuendo, and rumor.

I'm not saying conference expansion isn't going to happen. I don't think anyone is capable of answering that question in the affirmative or the negative right now.

What I am saying is that right now, there is very little that we can unequivocally claim as fact.

Keep that in mind over the coming days and weeks.
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