wvlax
2nd String
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- Apr 23, 2012
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SI's Stuart Mandel
......It wasn't that long ago when news of the Big East basketball schools leaving to form their own league would have rocked the sports world. Now, it barely makes a blip on the radar as we have become so used to conference musical chairs that a few basketball programs moving around seems almost trivial. Are we anywhere near the end of this insanity? And what do you see as the aftershock of this announcement?
-- Hayden Murphy, Waco, Texas
I can definitely tell people have become numb to this stuff, and I'm no exception. Last Saturday was a landmark day for anyone, like me, who grew up watching Patrick Ewing play Chris Mullin, or who attended the Big East tournament almost every year while living in New York. Still, the news just kind of came and went. Just two years ago, the 16-team Big East produced 11 NCAA tournament teams and the eventual national champion, Connecticut. Since then, 13 of those 16 programs have either left or announced they will leave, and somehow that national champion is one of the three left standing. It's crazy, and yet, after two years of this nonsense, there's none of the giddiness and intrigue that filled my inbox and Twitter feed back when Nebraska was flirting with the Big Ten or Texas with the Pac-12.
Unfortunately, there is not an end in sight. I expect movement, or at least the possibility of movement, to be a constant backdrop for the next several years. The one thing that could finally put an end to it all is that after the Big East, the Big Ten is the only major conference with a television negotiation pending in the next few years (likely in 2015). Everyone else is now locked up for a decade or longer. I'll believe the Big Ten is staying at 14 teams only if it gets through that next deal without another move, and I'll only believe the ACC and SEC are standing pat if the Big Ten stands pat. We'll also have to see after the first couple years of the new playoff (around 2015 or '16) whether the Big 12 feels having 10 teams is an advantage or disadvantage. In the meantime, the immediate aftermath of the Big East breakup centers around what kind of TV deal the football schools can get, and, related to that, whether Boise State will still come and whether BYU will join it.
......It wasn't that long ago when news of the Big East basketball schools leaving to form their own league would have rocked the sports world. Now, it barely makes a blip on the radar as we have become so used to conference musical chairs that a few basketball programs moving around seems almost trivial. Are we anywhere near the end of this insanity? And what do you see as the aftershock of this announcement?
-- Hayden Murphy, Waco, Texas
I can definitely tell people have become numb to this stuff, and I'm no exception. Last Saturday was a landmark day for anyone, like me, who grew up watching Patrick Ewing play Chris Mullin, or who attended the Big East tournament almost every year while living in New York. Still, the news just kind of came and went. Just two years ago, the 16-team Big East produced 11 NCAA tournament teams and the eventual national champion, Connecticut. Since then, 13 of those 16 programs have either left or announced they will leave, and somehow that national champion is one of the three left standing. It's crazy, and yet, after two years of this nonsense, there's none of the giddiness and intrigue that filled my inbox and Twitter feed back when Nebraska was flirting with the Big Ten or Texas with the Pac-12.
Unfortunately, there is not an end in sight. I expect movement, or at least the possibility of movement, to be a constant backdrop for the next several years. The one thing that could finally put an end to it all is that after the Big East, the Big Ten is the only major conference with a television negotiation pending in the next few years (likely in 2015). Everyone else is now locked up for a decade or longer. I'll believe the Big Ten is staying at 14 teams only if it gets through that next deal without another move, and I'll only believe the ACC and SEC are standing pat if the Big Ten stands pat. We'll also have to see after the first couple years of the new playoff (around 2015 or '16) whether the Big 12 feels having 10 teams is an advantage or disadvantage. In the meantime, the immediate aftermath of the Big East breakup centers around what kind of TV deal the football schools can get, and, related to that, whether Boise State will still come and whether BYU will join it.