1. The wheels of conference realignment continue to move, as the SEC and Missouri made their partnership official. Missouri joins the SEC after what seems like endless speculation, especially in recent weeks after news broke of the West Virginia move. If there is one fan base that deserves to have their conference realignment issues resolved, it’s Missouri’s. They were one of the first teams to be involved in the conference realignment discussion in 2010, and the speculation and anxiety that came along with it has lasted up until this weekend. So, congratulations to Missouri fans — whether they are happy with this move or not, they can at least take solace in the fact their conference realignment saga is over… for five years or so, at least.
2. And now, some conference realignment link. The Charleston Daily Mail has an article discussing the challenges that awaits WVU in the world of Big 12 hoops. These hurdles became even more daunting with the Mountaineers’ exhibition loss to D-II Northern Kentucky on Friday night. The article goes on to discuss that much of West Virginia’s hoop success has come from its recruiting in New York City. Big East hoops provides the Mountaineers with many opportunities to show off to New York City-area prospects, with games at Rutgers, Seton Hall, Saint John’s, and Madison Square Garden for the Big East Tournament. How that will be impacted with a move to the Big 12 is anyone’s guess.
3. MySanAntonio.com has a story up talking about how Big 12 football might have diminished in stature with Nebraska and Colorado’s recent departures, less is more when it comes to Big 12 hoops. The article goes on to list their projected stars of the Big 12 season, and which teams are “rising” — Baylor and Texas Tech — and which teams are “falling” — Texas and Kansas State — in their estimation.
4. Jason King of ESPN.com discusses how much of a shame it is that the Kansas-Missouri rivalry appears to be coming to an end after 104 years and 265 games on the hardwood. This is an example of one of the dirtier sides of conference realignment in that nobody gets exactly what they want. While Missouri obviously found more reasons to join the SEC than to stay in the Big 12, I bet the Tiger athletic department also wishes they could have kept this rivalry on the schedule. King goes on to discuss how after numerous years of covering all the big college basketball rivalries, including Duke-UNC, Kentucky-Louisville, and Michigan-Michigan State, he has never seen more hatred between two schools than KU and UM.
5. Yet another article touting the Big 12 as a “winner” during the conference realignment saga is out. While this might not be breaking news, I included it because it is shocking that I’ve read numerous pundits picking the Big 12 as one of the conference realignment “winners,” when, up until October, all we heard was how much of an embarrassment the Big 12 was, and they were the laughingstock of all of college athletics for once again nearly disintegrating. Funny how fast opinions can change.

cwilliams (48 Posts)

This entry was posted on Monday, November 7th, 2011 at 7:00 am by cwilliams and is filed under big 12, microsites. Tagged: Border Showdown, conference realignment, kansas, missouri, rivalries, sec, west virginia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.