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Conference realignment: The sad reality


BasX
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The college basketball fan lives a difficult life. The season is too short. The offseason is too long. The NCAA tournament, as brilliant a competition as any in sports, is under siege. And maybe the worst of it? Nobody cares.

 

Oh, it's not that nobody cares about college basketball. But there's a difference between most people -- those whose fandom shifts and glides with the seasons, moving thoughtlessly from one sport to the next -- and the die-hard college basketball fan, who year-round sees everything through the prism of the game he or she loves.

 

Most people follow college hoops from January to April. The die-hard follows it from April to April.

 

Most people start thinking about their brackets when the conference tournaments start. The die-hard begins thinking about his bracket when the Maui Invitational starts.

 

You might be a college basketball die-hard if ... OK, OK, I'll stop. You get the idea. College basketball fans are passionate, but they're outnumbered. And in case the die-hard college basketball fan needed yet another reminder of their downtrodden disparity, I give you ... Conference Expansionocalypse 2010.

 

Everybody's making moves. The cell phones are ringing, the tweets are flying, and the e-mails are being leaked. But the most recent and potentially most dire development to the college hoops fan is that of the Pac-10's rumored attempts at forming the Death Star of West Coast conferences: The Pac-16.

 

http://espn.go.com/blog/CollegeBasketballNation/post/_/id/12212/conference-expansions-hoops-insanity

 

This makes me so sad. Having Mizzou and [expletive]in Nebraska decide where we sit makes me beyond sick.

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Nebraska is Big Ten bound, Colorado is Pac-10 bound now, meaning Texas and others will follow leaving KSU, Iowa State, Baylor, KU and Mizzou. Mizzou could join Nebraska in the Big 10 or 12, 13 or whatever. KU needs something to break its way.

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The problem for Kansas is that its football program is a non-factor and it doesn't have the academics to really interest the Big 10. Basketball isn't as lucrative as football is as a moneymaker.

 

I have no idea what happens to what's left of the Big 12. Maybe it dissolves or maybe it adds some Mountain West teams and Houston and SMU the way the Big East expanded. If it adds Memphis, it could still be a relevant basketball conference even if the rest of the conference leaves.

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It doesn't help Lew Perkins is resigning

 

Kansas Athletic Director Lew Perkins is set to resign from Kansas University effective with the end of the 2010-2011 school years, sources have told the Lawrence Journal-World and KUsports.com.

 

Perkins arrived at KU in 2003 after a highly successful stint at the University of Connecticut.

 

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2010/jun/10/kus-lew-perkins-set-resign-end-2010-2011-school-ye/?breaking

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The problem for Kansas is that its football program is a non-factor and it doesn't have the academics to really interest the Big 10. Basketball isn't as lucrative as football is as a moneymaker.

 

I have no idea what happens to what's left of the Big 12. Maybe it dissolves or maybe it adds some Mountain West teams and Houston and SMU the way the Big East expanded. If it adds Memphis, it could still be a relevant basketball conference even if the rest of the conference leaves.

 

Kansas being left out of discussions proves the impact college football has and how little college basketball means in the scheme of things. Nebraska, a big football school, has 10x the power KU has and the KU basketball program has more national titles than Nebraska has tournament wins. 3-0. It sucks but every KU fan understands why.

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I don't understand how Colorado would be considered as a "Pac"-10 team. Why don't colleges stick with the alignment? Hell, I heard the "Pac"-10 is trying to persuade Texas and other colleges that are not in the Pacific coast area..

 

Money > Geography

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As an Oregon resident, and a UO student in a few months, I think it's good for the conference that we're getting all this added power with Colorado (not a biggy, but it does help add some notoriety to the conference), and especially Texas and some others. I understand Colorado as a Pac team, but Texas is so far away that it'll make for lots of neutral site games IMO.

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Will the Big 12 still be operational in basketball?

 

As of now, the Big 12 still exists. Despite teams leaving, the Big 12 might try to raid C-USA and the Mountain West to fill itself up. You might see Texas and Oklahoma and the like leave, but the Big 12 will go after Memphis, TCU, Houston, Tulsa, and UTEP to fill the void, much the same way the Big East took on Louisville, and USF when Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College left.

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