12/21/24
September 19, 2011
NCAA Conference Death Watch - Big East gains on Big 12: Out of nowhere, Syracuse and Pitt jump from the increasingly wrongly named Big East to the Atlantic Coast Conference. Details haven't been ironed out, but this is seen by many as the latest step toward four 16-team superconferences (and a de facto football playoff of sorts), with the ACC trying to make a case for being the fourth.
Meanwhile, Texas and Oklahoma are looking more and more like the next members of the Pac-16 (with little brothers Texas Tech and Oklahoma State along for the ride).
I was poking around a bit last night for something like an NBA Trade Machine for NCAA realignment but I couldn't find anything. It would be nice to have a little interactive listing of all the teams and the conferences that you could drag around and create your own version of the FBS. Ideally it would even rate your moves as something like "Likely", "Unlikely" and "Impossible" based on current rumors and agreements.
I say this because I feel like it should be more like five 16-team superconferences. If you limit it to just 64 teams, there are some worthy programs that get left out. I guess that makes any presumed playoff scenario unwieldy, but it seems more reasonable to me (I realize that reason has no place in college athletics).
posted by Rock Steady at 11:36 AM on September 19, 2011
So the ACC is now a misnomer as well. I don't really like these super-conferences. Will more ACC teams get into the NCAA tournament with Syracuse and Pitt joining? This seems like a step back for football and a giant leap forward for basketball.
posted by bperk at 12:22 PM on September 19, 2011
So here is my hand-made attempt at reorganizing the NCAA into 4 super-conferences with no independents and 5 lesser conferences. I guess you don't really need a fifth super, but it's a shame to relegate teams like Boise St, TCU, Missouri and Louisville to the also-rans.
posted by Rock Steady at 12:38 PM on September 19, 2011
The whole thing is absurd money grubbing, with the Pitt chancellor in the role of lead hypocrite.
From a purely sporting standpoint, I think it's unfortunate that the size of these leagues prevents basketball teams from playing everyone home and away and football teams from playing everyone once.
posted by Mookieproof at 12:45 PM on September 19, 2011
pholcomb, rumor has it that the P12 has told Texas that it has to fold the LHN into its regional-network deal, and Texas has seen that Oklahoma is willing to leave the Big 12 entirely over it. So their choice is to eat some crow in the guise of a better Pac-16 deal, stay in a rump conference, or go it alone as an independent.
posted by Etrigan at 01:22 PM on September 19, 2011
From a purely sporting standpoint, I think it's unfortunate that the size of these leagues prevents basketball teams from playing everyone home and away and football teams from playing everyone once.
Yeah man, that really stinks. Other than money reasons, what's the point of even having some teams in the same conference if they're not going to play each other very much?
posted by NoMich at 02:40 PM on September 19, 2011
>pholcomb, rumor has it that the P12 has told Texas that it has to fold the LHN into its regional-network deal, and Texas has seen that Oklahoma is willing to leave the Big 12 entirely over it.
How does that work exactly? I believe all of the networks in the PAC-12 are jointly owned by the conference, and now the PAC-12 will have a network that's owned by texas/ESPN? I'm really curious as to how they'll make that work.
posted by pholcomb at 03:29 PM on September 19, 2011
Rock, you might have something here, but I'd take BYU, Cincinnati, Notre Dame, and Bowling Green out of the "Big 16", and replace them with Iowa State, Missouri, and the 2 Kansas schools. This puts some great rivalries from the old Big 12 into this new conference, and maintains reasonable geographic integrity - Penn State being the eastern anchor and Kansas on the west. I'm not sure about Memphis and West Virginia in the SEC. One or two of the Louisiana schools (Monroe, Lafayette, or Tech) could be a better fit than West Virginia, and a replacement for Memphis, if not a Louisiana school, could be found.
If it were possible, put together 6 conferences of 16 teams, and have a playoff system similar to the NFL. That is, 4 of the teams compete in a first round, then the 2 "bye" teams take on the 2 winners, have 2 weeks between each round to allow adequate rest, and you have 4 weeks of playoffs. What to do about those non-conference schools? Let them save some money and drop back into 1-AA (sorry, I mean FCS. I just can't get used to those stupid letters).
posted by Howard_T at 04:45 PM on September 19, 2011
This seems like a step back for football and a giant leap forward for basketball.
Strictly speaking of the ACC, I guess so. But overall, the best basketball conference ever just got shredded because of football-driven concerns.
RIP, Big East. Now I get to watch my Georgetown Hoyas program slowly disintegrate along with the rest of the Northeastern Catholic schools that don't have big-time, state-funded football programs.
posted by Venicemenace at 05:47 PM on September 19, 2011
"If conference commissioners were the founding fathers of this country, we would have Guatemala, Uruguay and Argentina in the United States," Boeheim said. "This audience knows why we are doing this. There's two reasons: Money and football.
"We're going to end up with mega conferences and 10 years from now either I'm going to be dead wrong -- and I'll be the first to admit it -- or everybody is going to be like...why is Syracuse going to Miami in basketball this week and next week they're going to play Florida State?"
From an interview with Jim Boeheim. The article adds,
During an interview prior to his speech, Boeheim was skeptical that conference realignment will actually result in more money for most schools once costs are considered.
posted by Venicemenace at 06:02 PM on September 19, 2011
Good luck with texas Pac-12. They're the fat rich kid who doesn't like to share. I'm incredibly surprised that OU, who was willing to abandon the Red River Rivalry a week ago because of texas' LHN, are now willingly going hand-in-hand with texas to the west coast.
Something smells here.