-
With all the hints and allegations flying across the country via texts, Twitter, and television reports (mostly Twitter, though), at some point beyond the decisions made by Texas A&M, Syracuse, and Pittsburgh, somebody is going to have to pull the trigger and commit somewhere, even if the Pac-12 is now closed for realignment business. Attempting to grease the rails a little, the SEC did Missouri a solid as of yesterday afternoon, offering the Tigers a spot in that conference but still allowing them to see what happens to the Big 12. Missouri chancellor Brady Deaton, though, has spoken out frequently about how he’d prefer to keep the Big 12 together and stay put, but we don’t know if his statements could be fairly applied to a revamped Big 12, or the now oft-speculated Big 12/Big East hybrid. Still, what a nice turn of events for Mizzou. Some schools don’t have anyone that wants them and are getting nervous. Missouri has the SEC as its fail-safe, and that’s not a bad spot to be in right now. The scuttlebutt is that this won’t happen, now, but the SEC needs a 14th school for (gag reflex initiated) football reasons, and it has to come from somewhere.
-
Jim Boeheim’s rant yesterday (see yesterday’s M5 or our Tumblr feed at right) provided a refreshing dose of logic on Realignment-ageddon and is so far the best discourse on what will probably happen as a result. As far as why this is happening, look no farther than yesterday’s piece by Sporting News’ Mike DeCourcy in which he explains why this nonsense began, what’s perpetuated it, and how astonishing it is that some pretty smart folks are making such colossal blunders, here. A description of the actions of college presidents over the last six weeks as “an unprecedented bacchanal of jealousy, mistrust, fear and conceit?” Oh, yes. Get yourself more of that.
-
A couple of days ago, DeCourcy penned an article making the claim that Pittsburgh’s defection to the ACC would all but ruin the Panther basketball program. On Tuesday, Mike Miller of NBCSports.com’s Beyond the Arc published his counterpoint, asserting that things won’t change that much, and he has a snippet from a recent interview of Jamie Dixon as part of his evidence in which the head Panther says these conference switches “won’t be quite as much change as it may seem initially.” What’s Dixon supposed to say, though? He’s not going to show up for an interview and say, “Man, we are totally screwed. And I’m so outta here.” We enjoy the opposing takes from two experts in the field of college basketball, and that’s at least one good thing about all the realignment talk — the people who do care about basketball have a few new points for gentlemanly debate.
-
In any conflict, resolution is most effectively and quickly achieved when the belligerents and all immediately affected parties put themselves in a room, come together face to face, and have it out. The Big East had its “come-to-Jesus” meeting last night, according to the great Dick Weiss of the New York Daily News. According to Weiss, this get-together of bigwigs resulted in every remaining school — yes, both the football and non-football schools — pledging to stay put as the conference now puts the full-court press on a couple of candidates to take the places of Syracuse and Pitt. Among the candidates mentioned: Army, Navy, and Air Force. That is not a typo.
-
Before the Pac-12 slammed its doors shut last night, Oklahoma had been rumored to be headed everywhere from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten to the SEC or a sewn-together, refurbished Big 12. That last option, according to Barry Tramel of The Oklahoman, is only possible if current Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe is removed and Texas’ new Longhorn Network is restricted in exactly what it can show, among other demands. If this was leaked intentionally by OU brass, we don’t exactly know why, since it doesn’t look like a final good-faith attempt to keep the conference together as much as it does extortion or an example of Oklahoma holding the conference hostage. What we found especially funny is this photo that made it to us (and countless others) through the Twitter grapevine of SI.com’s Andy Staples and Leila Rahimi, a reporter for KXAN in Austin (Hi, Leila!) who took the pic. Nice ad placement in a story referencing Oklahoma’s unhappiness at how the Big 12 has become a bunch of satellites revolving around the Jupiter that is Texas, don’t you think?