I'm not too into the Big XII/SEC pissing matches. I'm still a fan of the Big XII. It's a great football league, probably second to the SEC this yr. The elite teams didn't measure up but it was as deep as any league in the country. It's also a really fun hoops league. I've always liked both leagues more than the others. What the future holds for the Big XII IDK - it will last as long as TX and OU want it to but the minute they don't.......I'm just glad I don't have to worry about it any longer.

Now the Big Ten, there's a league that puts me into a coma. It freaking sucks. No amount of hoops success can make up for the hot pile of garbage it puts on the football field every fall or for their arrogant, hypocritical, egg-head, FOS fan base.

SEC basketball sucks hind teet this year but in many others it has been somewhat under-appreciated.

The thread that wont die.

most people find it pretty easy to argue that the big 12 isn't #1.

I'm actually quite glad that the "mouth-breather" portion of fanbases exist, like Saul here. His obsession with football is great for places like KU. The less competition we have the better. My biggest fear has always been the OU-Texas-LSU-USC types getting their sh-t together and going heavy into basketball. That will take down KU faster than any Iowa State or Purdue or Butler, you know: schools that do dedicate resources and do care about hoops a lot.


It looked like it was happening the past decade or so. Texas had become a very close peer in the league, Donovan was winning titles in Florida, Matta has had Ohio State cooking, and now Beilein at Michigan. The football schools seemed to take a step back when re-alignment hit and for that, as a Ku fan, i was actually happy it was occurring.


There's really nothing stopping Austin from building a Sprint Center down there and attracting top players in a state that's nearing 30 million folks and who's basketball crops are vastly improved from 20 years ago.

I think that, in the next 5-10 years, the SEC will improve to an elite basketball conference. If Duke and North Carolina join the SEC, the conference will wind up dominating basketball the way it dominates football.

Won't Duke and UNC drag football down?

New market for SEC channel. Improve academics. More eyes and households viewers.

They are great schools. But won't they drag football down?

Every conference has lower end football programs. Money is in the channel and household viewers. NC will tune in to watch both schools. Will benefit them in basketball. The value would be in the number of TV's.

Yes, I am aware of the economics of adding them. They may add incremental dollars. But I'm trying to understand why a football conference that only cares about football would want to dilute it's football brand by adding 2 crappy football programs. Just for money? You would agree it's a very odd strategy no?


"Basketball doesn't matter!" So why are you adding basketball schools? "Because we want to be the best in basketball, dammit!"

A bit, sure. I don't want Duke, but I've heard a lot of rumblings that Slive basically feels like the battle for football supremacy is over and is setting his sights on basketball. If this is, in fact, the case, it could be the death blow for NCAA.

If we get the four super conference structure that we appear to be heading towards, those conferences will likely form their own association and operate outside the NCAA for football. If the SEC takes over basketball, it's not hard to imagine Slive, Delany, and company doing the same thing with basketball. No reason to think they would want to share the pie to fund a bunch of mid majors.

That would be great for football but terrible for basketball, IMO.

The thought would be that they decide start trying at basketball. You've already mentioned the economics of bringing the state of North Carolina into the fold. If this happens, suddenly you've got three of the four greatest basketball programs in history within the conference. Then you've got the recent power that is Florida and some nice complimentary pieces like Mizzou and Arkansas. At that point, you're 90% of the way to basketball dominance. Might as well rule football, baseball, AND basketball.

It's about expanding the conference footprint for the conference network. The league doesn't need any more football heavyweights. Same reason they took Mizzou.

I actually hate all of it.

If I had my druthers I'd like to hit the reset button and go back to 2010 and leave it alone.

But alas that is fantasy land.

Conference Realignment has had exactly the opposite effect that most on this board thought it would. There are more teams than ever that have a chance to win the BCS Championship. Fans think this is some movement by football to create some large NFL style tournament or something. When in fact it's not that at all. It's media footprint. A combination of brand and population to make television contracts more lucrative.

I agree. It's been a mess for most involved. Tuesday night was the last meeting of Syracuse and UConn. That's a pretty sad statement. But then men running these institutions are making their choices. There's no going back from what I can tell.