Quote:
Originally Posted by warpaint*
Iowa? Hardly.
I grew up a Big 8 kid like all Mizzou fans/alums my age, (37). I "associate" us w/ the old Big 8 & Tx schools as the Big 12 to me was just an extension of the Big 8. While I am still a fan of the Big 12 3 of the original 8 and 4 of 12 are gone, it's not exactly the same league anymore. On top of that Colorado is not the Colorado of my youth.
The Big Ten is a snooze fest and dying product (football) w/ no teams in anchor states for talent (CA/TX/Fla). Population shifts and demographics are killing it slowly.
We've played Illinois OOC all my life. Continuing to do that isn't a change from the norm.
The overall culture of the state is midwestern and southern. Some parts more than the other depending on where you are. MU fits in better w/ these SEC states than some of these upper midwest ones. Is it a perfect fit? No, the Big 12 was but that didn't appear to be feasible long term at the time a golden parachute in the form of the SEC opportunity presented itself. We fit in as well there as the Big Ten.
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Pretty much this.
Missouri is similar in a lot of respects to Kansas, Iowa, and Illinois. (I'm not really sure what Illinois has to do with this discussion, though.) The Big 8 was a great fit for Missouri with teams from Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Colorado. Those days are long gone, though.
Colorado and Nebraska are no longer in the conference. Half of the conference is now from Texas or West Virginia. The hapless leadership of Don Bebee drove 40% of the members away...to three different conferences. It's not like one conference made one school an offer it couldn't refuse. This is evidence of systemic problems in the league despite the way those left behind have tried to spin it.
If you meet an asshole in the morning, you met an asshole. If you meet assholes all day...you're the asshole. The Big 12 has met nothing but assholes for years.
Today, it's a dying conference with no identity, but it doesn't even seem to realize it. Of the major conferences, it's got the worst football, mediocre at best basketball, the worst academics, the worst geographic layout, and the most unbalanced power structure.
To their credit, they have taken steps to remedy the last item on that list, but they did so only after 4 members left taking three states with them. To make things worse, the two additions they made were done out of desperation rather than foresight. Predictably, they have been unmitigated disasters. These schools have brought terrible football, terrible basketball, terrible academics, terrible fan support, and they have made a mockery of the conference in terms of having a shared culture or cohesive footprint...and it's STILL the smallest in terms of member institutions and overall enrollment. For crying out loud...when you have four schools out of ten in Texas alone, you wouldn't think that one of the schools would have to be 900 miles away from it's closest compatriot...but you'd be wrong.
A case can be made for the SEC, PAC, or B1G being the strongest major conference overall...but the Big 12 is last with a bullet.