The Big 12 may be dead tomorrow. ESPN journalist Eamonn Brennan wrote
a beautiful homage to Kansas, the very cradle of basketball and college basketball's best program. There is no Cinderella in Kansas. Kansas is the masterful, dominat home of a true basketball calling, the source of all things basketball. Allen Fieldhouse has been repeatedly polled to be both the most feared and most loved place to play. Everyone wants to go there and lose to the Jayhawks because winning there is simply unthinkable for anyone not wearing blue.
It is understandable that other teams want to leave. Kansas is the undisputed king of basketball, so playing against Kansas is not fun anymore. For this reason, these schools, mostly oriented toward football, have elected to focus on profit and playing other football schools. That's fair. I can understand feeling the need for something new after getting punished every basketball season despite representing one of America's strongest communities of college basketball. Let's not forget that almost every NCAA basketball tournament places at least 5 Big 12 schools, not because they are Big 12 schools but because they are so good at basketball.
The consequences of this move are bad sports in general but great for money. Let's think football for a moment. Imagine if Texas and USC are now rivals in a 16-team conference. There are only 13 games in college football seasons, and just over half of those games are against conference teams. In effect, a 16-team conference would be deciding who is the best with the possibility of never playing the best 2 teams. If the highest ranked last year meet this year to decide who is better, the seniors will have all graduated. This isn't some sport with 2 years of matches to decide a winner. You get 1 winner per year, and there are going to be way too many teams fighting for that spot, many of which will never meet despite being in the same conference.
Let's get back to the home of basketball. Lawrence, Kansas, gave birth to the sport. Now, some of its greatest teams have slapped the mother in her face and left like whores in search of money in California. If they leave, I hope these powerhouses become the inferior counterparts to USC, UCLA, and their new competition in every sport they play.
I can't possibly leave this post without mentioning Missouri. For those of us who haven't stuied their midwest history, Missouri was a neutral slave state in the Civil War. Residents from Columbia all the way to the border came to Lawrence and territorial capital Lecompton with weapons and torches, burning them to the ground and killing their countrymen. Lawrence retaliated. This was the birth of a rivalry that still exists today. Missouri has decided to play both sides, the Big 10 and the Big 12, in an effort to keep everyone happy. While Nebraska, slimy as they might be to display their interest in moving the the Big 10 publicy, has made their intentions somewhat clear, Missouri remains neutral. It is history repeating. If this all comes to pass, I hope that Kansas and Kanas State get into the Big 10, too. I'm confident that Kansas continue to dominate any conference due to strong coaching and recruiting.
Kansas and Kansas State have agreed to work together, some might say like a team. If one gets into a conference, that school will push for the other school to get entry as well. That leaves Baylor and Iowa State as the only schools left. They need to decide where they want to go or how they want to handle their athletic programs. The best guess is that Baylor heads west and Iowa State, a weak athletic school, doesn't find a home at all. Alternatively, the remaining 4 schools in the Big 12, Kansas, Kansas State, Baylor, and Iowa State, all bring other schools to their community and form a new conference. This would kill Kansas' powerful basketball program unless some major players join the pack.
This ridiculous scenario is becoming a reality. Colorado announced its intention to join better schools in the Pac-10. The announcement claimed that Colorado is a perfect academic and athletic match out there. Of course they are a perfect athletic match. Almost all the teams over there can beat Colorado with the only exception being skiing.
It is sad that greed has taken some of these teams so far. The Big 12 was a powerful force in college athletics. Even if you feel that the Big 12 was inferior to another major conference, it was still on the table as a top conference. Now, the top conferences will be twice the size of reason, but the pocket-stuffing idiots who made this catastrophic decision won't look back. I guess they won't be thanking Kansas later for helping to make them so big all year instead of just in the overinflated months of football season.