1. Checking in on the latest conference re-re-realignment talk from Utah, the current word is that BYU is still intent on going independent in football but is looking more and more like a candidate to move to the WCC in basketball and all other sports.  Yes, you read that right.  The West Coast Conference, the tightly-knit eight-team conference of tiny private religious institutions that max out at nearly 9,000 students (Loyola Marymount and San Francisco, whereas BYU at 33,000 students is nearly four times that enrollment) and has remained at eight teams for three decades.  Andy Katz makes the case that this move makes sense in basketball, and we can’t really argue with his logic, except for one little thing — you know what makes more sense?  Staying in the Mountain West, where, with recent additions of Nevada and Fresno State to go with San Diego State, UNLV and New Mexico, the league is on the verge of overtaking the Pac-10 for hoops superiority out west.  We should know something very soon — the deadline for BYU to leave the Mountain West is Wednesday.
2. Getting back to the conference that BYU originally threatened to move to prior to its implosion, the WAC, feeling jilted and unloved after Nevada and Fresno State’s unceremonious dumping earlier this month, is threatening to sue the two schools if each refuses to pay a disputed $5M exit fee each by the October 25 deadline.  Furthermore, the WAC says that they have the contractual right to not release the two renegades until after the 2011-12 academic year, an interesting assertion given that Fresno and Nevada’s stated positions are that they’re leaving next summer.  This is going to get more interesting before it dies down, because there’s no question that this particular tussle has gotten personal among key players at some of these schools.
3. There’ll be a boatload of these player profiles coming out in the next two months, but it just means that the season is slowly approaching.  Here are a few from the last few days: Texas’ Jordan Hamilton, Mizzou’s Kim English, Purdue’s E’Twaun Moore, and Louisville’s Preston Knowles.
4. Jeff Jacobs, a UConn columnist at the Hartford Courant, suggests that Ater Majok’s presumed leaving of the program has nothing to do with impending sanctions that may have involved his recruitment, as we wrote could be possible yesterday.  But in the same paragraph, he also says that there have been “whispers” in the program involving Majok, so we’re not sure what to believe here.  UConn is expected to announce its response to the NCAA’s allegations later this week.
5. Austin Rivers is the #1 prospect in the Class of 2011, according to Rivals, and he showed the skill that he possesses in a recent summer league game where he crossed over and scored on #1 pick John Wall, followed by ripping him clean on defense on the other end.  One blogger makes a reasonable case as to why Rivers will end up playing for Coach K at Duke in the fall of 2011.

1. It’s been a rough summer for Louisville head coach Rick Pitino, and things haven’t gotten any better as we head into the upcoming Labor Day weekend.  Two players expected to contribute on the wing for the 2010-11 Cardinals will not be eligible.  The biggest hit comes in the form of Memphis transfer Roburt Sallie, who was attempting to take advantage of a transfer rule that allows a player to play immediately at his new school if he has already graduated and his school does not offer post-graduate training in his area of study (see: Alabama’s Justin Knox to UNC as but one example).  Well, Sallie failed to graduate from Memphis over the summer in time to enroll at Louisville, so he will not be allowed to utilize the rule.  Additionally, incoming freshman Justin Coleman, a top fifty scoring guard from Huntington, WV, is also ineligible.  Louisville clawed its way to a mediocre season by its lofty standards last year (20-13, 1st round NCAA loss), but frankly, we’re having trouble seeing how Pitino is going to coax his current roster back into the Big Dance.
2. Meanwhile, a little farther east on the interstate, John Calipari continues to enjoy the Midas touch with his recruits.  Despite Mike Gilchrist’s tweeting about taking three official visits on Friday night, conventional wisdom is that he’s still strongly committed to Kentucky and will end up in Lexington a year from now.  On Saturday, UK received a commitment from another elite player in the Class of 2011, Kyle Wiltjer, a 6’9 forward from Oregon who proves that Calipari is keeping that Pacific Northwest pipeline greased and fertile.   Additionally, 6’11 transfer forward (and former Florida Gator) Eloy Vargas was declared eligible over the weekend and will have two seasons remaining with the Wildcats.  The only missing piece for Cal’s 2010-11 team remains the eligibility limbo that Enes Kanter is in over questions about his amateur status.  The way things are going in Lexington these days, expect him to be declared eligible by Midnight Madness.
3. Ray Holloman at Fanhouse deconstructs the Big East’s decision to continue with the double-bye system for the top four seeds of the Big East Tournament.  The basic premise: the Big East is loaded in positions one through eight, much more so than any other conference.  No wonder the coaches unanimously voted for a sixteen-team bracket scenario — it gives those at the top an opportunity for an easy first-round win before getting down to serious business among the quarterfinal teams, most of whom are NCAA-caliber in a given year.  Great analysis.
4. LeBron’s high school coach at St. Vincent-St. Mary (OH), Dru Joyce, stated late last week that Xavier University is now his “enemy,” and that the school would no longer be allowed to recruit his players after what he describes as the unnecessary pushing of one of his stars to a prep school for 2010-11.  JaKarr Sampson is a rising senior who shot up the summer recruiting rankings after a strong showing at LeBron’s Skills Academy, but according to his mother, it is she, not XU, who is responsible for sending her son to prep school Brewster Academy (NH) because of his lackluster academic record.  Weird situation, there.
5. This BYU to the WAC or WCC thing is getting even more fascinating than we thought possible.  As the Salt Lake Tribune reported on Sunday, BYU is expected to announce complete independence in football and a move to one of the other “W” conferences in all other sports as soon as today.  The deadline that the school has to inform the Mountain West Conference if it plans to leave is Wednesday of this week, and all indications are that it will take that step despite the MWC’s counter-poach of two of the more valuable properties in the WAC, Fresno State and Nevada.  Open records requests revealed that “The Project” to target BYU was originally a WAC retaliatory measure for the MWC’s nabbing of Boise State during the early-summer conference realignment madness.  Ironically, Nevada president Milt Glick was the first person to use the code name to target BYU on the record, yet it was his school in Reno that jumped at the chance to join the MWC within mere hours of the offer.  Wild stuff going on out there in the Great Basin.

Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West and Pac-10 Conferences and an occasional contributor. 

The Who, What, When, Where and Why

Just when you thought we were done with conference realignment talk, at least for the summer, out of nowhere comes a stunner that rocks the Mountain West Conference and could set in motion a new chain of events that could leave us without what had turned into arguably the best non-BCS conference in the nation.  No official announcement has been made, but as of mid-day on Wednesday, it seemed that BYU would leave the MWC beginning in 2011, play football as an independent and join up with the WAC for all other sports. The Salt Lake Tribune has reported the move as a “done deal,” pending approval by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the owner of the school.  However, the Mountain West, fighting for its life, immediately responded by officially inviting Fresno State and Nevada to join the conference, invitations which, if accepted, would pretty much cripple the WAC before BYU even arrived, and perhaps forcing BYU to reconsider the wisdom of such a move.

Maybe BYU Can After All?

BYU has been displeased with the television revenues associated with the Mountain West Conference and their dedicated cable television network, The Mountain, estimated to be somewhere around $2 million last season for football only. Comparatively, Utah, which just received and accepted in June an invitation to join the Pac-10, is expected to take home somewhere north of $15 million a season in football television revenues when it begins play in that league  in 2011. BYU was apparently shocked that it was passed over when the Pac-10 expanded, and shocked again when the Big 12 passed on inviting the school as well, so it began exploring the possibility of taking the matter into its own hands.

BYU already has its own television network, and athletic director Tom Holmoe notes that it has its own state-of-the-art broadcast facility and equipment, including their own HD production truck.  “There is nothing better than that west of the Mississippi. Nothing. For broadcasting,” said Holmoe at a meeting with reports on the BYU campus on July 16, according to Jay Drew of the Salt Lake Tribune. “And it is first class. The things that we can do with that, the opportunities and possibilities. Nobody in the country has that ability.” Aside from the prospect of broadcasting their own games, BYU is reportedly in negotiations with ESPN for its football rights.

Is the Mountain West Kaput?

The invitations issued by the MWC to Fresno State and Nevada make a lot of sense in not only strengthening the MWC but also perhaps killing the BYU defection before it starts.  The specifics of these invitations still need to be sorted out, as the MWC has a couple of things going against it:  (1) the remaining WAC schools reportedly signed an agreement just last week that imposes a $5 million buyout penalty on any school leaving the conference in the next five years; and, (2) the WAC has a television contract with ESPN that may be more attractive (if presently slightly less financially rewarding) than The Mountain. It is unknown at this time whether the MWC in the interest of self-preservation has attempted to sweeten the pot for Fresno State and Nevada by potentially ponying up some cash to pay their buyout fees or if other machinations are in the works. It had been reported earlier in the day that Fresno State and Nevada had already declined offers to join the MWC.

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The Pac-10 today formally announced several wholesale changes to its league at its annual football media days held in New York City this year.  You read that right — New York City — a mere 2,400 miles from its nearest current institution.  Attempting to rebrand itself after its June power grab of two additional schools who will begin conference play in 2011 (Colorado and Utah), Commissioner Larry Scott (a New Yorker himself) brought the league to the east coast in an outreach effort not seen in those parts since Oregon’s unsuccessful effort to market QB Joey Harrington as Joey Heisman on a 100-foot NYC billboard in 2001. 

It Takes More than Marketing

Does marketing a west coast league with predominantly west coast players who cater to west coast fans in the media capital of the world have any effect on the national conversation about the Pac-10?  Maybe if we were talking about the Lakers, but otherwise, probably not.  We submit that this is a largely symbolic move by Scott to signal to his constituents that he’s willing to try somewhat unconventional methods to further market the league and reach new fans.  He said as much in his comments today:

It seemed to be a bit of an excuse and that the Pac-10 in my estimation was very laid back and passive in terms of how it went about telling its story and promoting itself.  To me the disconnect was people worried about that but they were not really doing much about it.

The league has been solid if not spectacular in football over the past five years, and a couple of tremendous basketball seasons in 2008 and 2009 was followed up with an epic stinker last year.  Given the three-hour time difference, the league will always have an inherent disadvantage against early-to-bed types in the east, but there are fans of both sports everywhere who will tune in if there is a product on the field or court worth watching.  The Pac-10’s television contract is set to expire next year, and one of the major hurdles for Scott and his crew will be to figure out how to handle the Fox Sports Net problem.  FSN is the primary television broadcaster for Pac-10 sports, yet in many localities, the NBA or MLB or NHL will pre-empt Pac-10 out of area broadcasts.  A big weeknight game between Arizona and UCLA may only be visible to half of the country, with the result being that even if people wanted to watch it in New York, they might not be able to do so.

New Logo Featuring Mountains and Sea

Unless your name is King James, however, focused marketing usually helps, and Scott seems intent on maximizing the league brand prior to those television contract negotiations next year.  Some of the re-branding changes:

• Starting next year, with Colorado and Utah on board, the league will be “mathematically correct” in calling itself the Pac-12.  It doesn’t roll off the tongue, but we do appreciate the attention to the laws of arithmetic in taking shots at the soon-to-be twelve-team Big Ten and ten-team Big 12.  We’re crossing our fingers that they’ve thought through the natural consequence that everyone is going to start calling the league the “12-Pac” now, though.  
• The conference has a new, modern logo (see above) that features the natural beauty and outdoorsy lifestyle that the region is known for.  The old one seemed like something out of the 60s, and what was that thing behind the Pac?  The sun? 
• A re-designed website that will feature streaming video called the Pac-10 Digital Network, including this marketing video that sorta scared us with its intensity. 

Of course, without a quality product and the ability to get it aired nationally from coast to coast, all of this is mere window dressing.  Props to Larry Scott for recognizing that the viability of his league will require some creative thinking and a proactive approach, but next year’s television deal is where the water will hit the sand.   Otherwise, those east coasters and midwesterners who already don’t care will continue to not care, and even with the West Coast adding people hand over fist, it alone still only represents about one-fifth of Americans. 

1. We’re getting closer to the NCAA making a decision on how to handle the four PiGs, and Gene Smith, chairman of the NCAA D1 Basketball Committee, is already giving it a good deal of thought.  His preference is to have the lowest RPI conference champions make up the four PiGs, but he sounds open to the at-large idea as well (let’s hope so!).  He isn’t sure how the rest of the committee feels at this point.  One interesting piece of news from the article is that highly successful  play-in game holder Dayton may be on the chopping block as the site for the four games.  Indianapolis — home of the NCAA –has a substantial amount of support for the move, according to Smith.  Interesting.
2. The Big 12 is dusting itself off and getting back to the business of running a power conference with its remaining ten member institutions.  Should the Big 12 decide to expand back to, you know, twelve teams again, Mike DeCourcy recommends adding Memphis and UNLV to its mix.  From a basketball perspective, this would undoubtedly make an already nasty conference even stronger.
3. Utah’s Jim Boylen is doing cartwheels about the recruiting advantages that he can use now as a member of the realigned Pac-10.  There’s no question that joining the west coast league will help the Ute program in recruiting, but we’re still unsure about how successful the program will be simply by moving “up” in conference pedigree.  It’ll be interesting to watch this.
4. Luke Winn’s report on incoming stud recruit Harrison Barnes at UNC: he “could be the smoothest scoring forward to hit college hoops since [Kevin] Durant.”  High, high praise.
5. The Knight Commission’s report last week revealing the stratospheric rise of spending on sports per athlete (now $85k per athlete annually vs. $13k per normal student) shows quite clearly just how far down the path of big-money sports we’ve already gone.  There really is no turning back now, and recommendations such as the Commission’s to tie NCAA postseason eligibility to graduation rates (suggested: 50%) will only further cement the huge disconnect between these moneymaking programs and the academic mission of their institutions.  The only viable endgame to this situation is a complete separation of these huge dollar programs from the NCAA — it seems that there can be no other answer.  The question is when?

Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Pac-10 and Mountain West conferences and an occasional contributor.

With the news on Thursday that Utah has received and accepted the invitation to become the 12^th member of the Pac-10, it looks like the college sports realignment apocalypse has been averted for the summer. There may be further movement on down the line, but all signs point to a relative period of calm after weeks of frantic scrambling from all corners of the country. While it was a pale substitute for actual on-court play, we did have plenty of intrigue and suspense, action and strategy, and winners and losers. Now it’s just a matter of sorting out who was what.

The Greatest and Still Champion

Texas

A Lot to Be Happy about in Austin These Days

Texas definitely fits in the “winner” category, but I think lumping them in with these other schmucks below would be selling them short. And I’m sure they would agree. The Longhorns played this about as well as could be played, and they got everything they wanted out of it. The Big 12 keeps their television deal with ESPN (which doesn’t expire until 2016), but only has to share the proceeds among ten schools rather than twelve. The conference received a promise from Fox for a new deal when their current deal expires, with exponential increases in revenue on tap. And, on top of all that, Texas retains the right to sell local television rights and is free to explore its plans for a Longhorn television network. Bonus: in the process of trying to keep the Longhorns in the Big 12, there are reports that the neediest institutions in the bunch agreed to a plan that sent all of the money that Colorado and Nebraska owe the conference in buyout fees (reported to be somewhere between $10 and $40 million, depending on the source) to Texas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma. So, in the span of a week, without losing any of their traditional rivals in the Big 12 South, Texas goes from generating somewhere in the $12 million range in television revenues to earning an estimated $20-25 million annually. And, that’s not even the best of it. In the process, it became painfully obvious that Texas is the big dog in the conference and the other schools (aside from Texas A&M) are in some manner, just riding coattails. Schools like Oklahoma and Texas Tech made it clear that they were just going to do whatever Texas did, while others, like Missouri, Kansas, Iowa State and Baylor, had their futures twisting in the wind, reliant on Texas to save them. If the Longhorns had gone to the Pac-16, they would have just been one of the sixteen there. By staying at home, they are clearly the kings of their conference.

The Winners

Texas A&M

The Aggies showed themselves as the one school in the conference that had plans of their own regardless of Texas. While Oklahoma and others were happy to just do whatever Texas decided, A&M talked to the SEC, and by all reports, actually had an offer to join that conference. But, in the end when they could have run off and forced Texas’ move west, the Aggies agreed to stick around and share in the league’s windfall, excellent news for an athletic department that was $16 million in debt, and even better for a school whose once proud football program has fallen on hard times in the past decade.

Big 12 Basketball

Without a doubt, the Big 12 became a better basketball conference overnight. Over the last nine years, both Colorado and Nebraska have had an average finish of around ninth in the conference. Nebraska has never won an NCAA tournament game. Colorado has only had two NCAA tournament berths in the last 40 years. So as far as the basketball side of the equation goes, this is addition by subtraction at its finest. As the conference makes the transition to an 18-game schedule in which each team will play a full home-and-home round-robin, they will no longer have to worry about games against the Buffs or Huskers dragging down their RPI. Every night in the conference will be tough sledding, but every team in the conference will also have a better chance to build their resume for postseason play.

Watch Out, Big East and ACC...

Chip Brown and Orangebloods.com

Chip Brown has been the point-man on conference realignment for about two weeks now. He broke the original story about Texas dragging five other Big 12 schools to the Pac-10, and when Texas blinked in the 11^th hour, it was Brown who had that story first as well, even in the face of ESPN reporting the opposite. In the process, Brown, a former writer for the Dallas Morning News, has seen his Twitter followers increase exponentially, and the profile of Orangebloods.com, a Longhorn Rivals site of which he is part owner, has jumped from something that was only known amongst the most attentive Longhorn fans to an important resource for those of us following this story.

Utah

The Utes received just $1.2 million in television revenue from their association with the Mountain West Conference. Presently Pac-10 schools earn somewhere in the $10-$12 million neighborhood from their television contracts, and with the Pac-10 set to negotiate a new television deal which will begin the 2011-12 season, the Utah athletic department stands to make a nice chunk of change for very little trouble.  While the basketball program is going through a rough patch presently, it wouldn’t surprise anyone to see the Utes be right in the thick of things in the Pac-10 football chase immediately.

ABC/ESPN and Fox Sports

Both networks stepped in to help save the Big 12. ABC/ESPN agreed to keep their current contract with the Big 12, allowing the ten remaining members to split the revenues that had previously been divided amongst twelve. Fox Sports also agreed to large increases in their agreement with the Big 12 which expires next offseason. If Texas had bolted for the Pac-10 along with five other Big 12 members, both ESPN and Fox Sports would have had a major bidding war on its hands for the rights to the new Pac-16 conference television deal. The breakup of the Big 12 would likely have meant other moves by the Big Ten or SEC or ACC, moves that could have resulted in their contracts needing to be reworked. In the short term, both entities probably overpay for the Big 12 rights, but they saved themselves plenty of cash in the long term.

Big Ten

While it may have appeared to be the first rat on the way out before the ship went down, Nebraska’s move to the Big Ten makes a lot of sense, at least football-wise. Adding the Huskers gives the Big Ten four iconic football programs, the ability to hold a championship game and a fanbase that will eat up anything Huskers on the Big Ten Network. And, passing on Missouri is probably the right move as well. Picking up one Big 12 team brings the Big Ten to 12 schools, and allows them to take their time with any additional expansion they may be interested in, while getting the benefits of the 12^th team. If the Big Ten chooses to pursue further expansion, it will be mostly focused on Big East teams, including the great white whale, Notre Dame.

The Losers

Missouri

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1. Santa Clara head coach Kerry Keating is requesting that his fellow coaches go “hands-free” this summer (not texting and driving) in light of a recent accident where a young girl was killed on her bicycle by such a driver.  This is something we can get on board with, and we hope that other coaches (and readers) will take it to note.  If you must text, do it while the light is red.
2. Is the Big 12 sticking at ten for the time being, or will they look at adding someone like, say, Houston?  Texas legislators are pushing for this addition, and with the unbelievable power that the state’s flagship university now holds over the conference, we’d never say never.  But honestly, we’re not really seeing this as a realistic possibility.  UT wants all that Big 12 money for themselves.
3. As for the Mountain West, they’re sticking at nine for now after adding Boise State but losing Utah in the past two weeks.  Even with the loss of Utah, this league has really started to separate itself as the top mid-major league (if you can even call it that) in both football and basketball.
4. Bill Russell and KC Jones aren’t walking through that door.  No, this isn’t a reference to the Boston Celtics but rather the San Francisco Dons, who found themselves with a two-year probation that will not include a postseason ban.  The issue was that several athletes spent their scholarship money on non-required textbooks and school supplies.  And… we’re not sure what the problem is.
5. This article is an interesting look-back at the decision Billy Donovan made three years ago to stay at Florida instead of leaving for the Orlando Magic, but it hasn’t all been peaches and cream in Gainesville, while the Magic have become one of the better teams in the NBA (predictable three years ago given the Dwight Howard factor).  Many folks have Florida with all five starters returning as a top 10-15 squad next season, but this particular college-to-pro situation might have actually worked out.

1. Kansas AD Lew Perkins unveiled the secrets behind the curtain when he explained yesterday that the five Big 12 schools facing life outside the BCS — KU, Kansas State, Missouri, Iowa State and Baylor — came up with a ‘business plan’ to keep the Texas and Oklahoma schools from bailing on them to the Pac-10.  This business plan essentially amounts to these five schools paying for the privilege of having Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State in their conference.  Whether the subsidy will come from their NCAA Tournament revenue or penalties levied against Colorado and Nebraska for leaving is unclear, but what is absolutely certain is that the dollars will end up in Austin, College Station, Stillwater and Norman.  Just.  Wow.
2. Jerry Jones has done some amazing things in his lifetime, so if anyone else was pitching the idea of adding Arkansas and Notre Dame to the newfangled Big 12, we’d immediately dismiss the idea.  With the billionaire Cowboys owner saying it, we’ll at least entertain the thought for fifteen seconds or so.  For what it’s worth, Arkansas AD Jeff Long said that the Hawgs have “no interest” in leaving the SEC.  And why would they?  They are making major bank where they are, and the Big 12 is still going to be fraught with uncertainty given its ridiculous revenue ‘sharing’ agreement.
3. Here’s a good recap of Tom Izzo reactions from around the blogosphere over at BiaH.  Izzo as professional coach just doesn’t feel right.  We like this move to stay in East Lansing.
4. An interview with one of the best in the biz, Jay Bilas, for your lazy-day summer reading.
5. We enjoyed this post by Braves & Birds, an Atlanta-area sports blog, but we need to make one clarification: if you add up the value of all of the separate conference television contracts as well as the BCS bowl game contracts, it still does not approach what the NCAA Tournament brings in an average year (~$700-$800M) from its television deal.  The problem isn’t revenue in college basketball; it’s where the revenue goes.  Since the NCAA Tournament collects all the money from CBS/Turner up front and metes it out to the schools and conferences as it sees fit while all the college football dollars go directly to the conferences/schools themselves, it’s easy to see why the gridiron game is the driver here.  It also explains why there won’t be a college football playoff anytime soon as administered by the NCAA — the big-ticket schools simply don’t want to share that revenue with anyone else.

As expected, the Pac-10 formally extended an invitation to the University of Utah this afternoon, sending shivers of teetotaling anticipation up and down the Wasatch Range for Utah trustees to sign the deal before Texas hears a new pitch and changes its mind again.  The Board of Trustees will meet on Thursday and a press conference is scheduled to announced the move at 1 pm MT tomorrow afternoon, signifying that Utah might end up being the biggest winner in this entire conference realignment process.  The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the school earned only $1.2M in television revenue from the Mountain West last year, while the Pac-10 under its previous television deal distributed $8-$10M each to its members.  The expectation is that Utah could with this move theoretically be looking at ten times as much revenue than it was previously earning , which probably explains why fruit baskets from SLC to Austin were in rapid transit this week and also why the trustees are falling all over themselves to get this thing confirmed. 

Utah Will Do Anything to Make This Happen

This addition (remember, this was the expected move prior to all the Big 12 implosion nonsense of the past few weeks) will with Denver (#18) and Salt Lake City (#31) give the Pac-10 footprint nine of the top 31 television markets in the country starting in 2011-12, more than any other major conference.  While Commissioner Larry Scott would have mightily preferred to add the lucrative Texas markets to his conference (Dallas and Houston are both in the top ten), these two additions ensure that the new Pac-12 will dominate college athletics in both the Mountain and Pacific time zones for the foreseeable future.

Speaking of dominance, how will the addition of Utah impact Pac-10 basketball?  Unlike former Big 12 bottom-feeder Colorado, Utah actually has a strong tradition of hoops excellence that it can bring to bear in its new league.  The Utes had a phenomenal program from 1989-2004 under Rick Majerus, going to ten NCAA Tournaments and the title game in 1998, but in recent years they’ve been passed by local schools BYU and Utah State for hardwood superiority in the region.  The Beehive State, however, is generally very supportive of basketball, and with the new recruiting inroads that Pac-10 membership will afford Jim Boylen’s team, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for Utah to once again surge forward as a consistently competitive basketball program in coming seasons. 

1. Yesterday’s big realignment news was that if you can believe what Craig Thompson, the Commissioner of the Mountain West, has to say, the Pac-11 has yet to contact Utah about possibly becoming the twelfth member of that league.  Don’t worry, Mr. Thompson.  They will on Wednesday.
2. As for this new 12-team conference, how will the divisions be configured?  Dividing them up into two six-team divisions by geography (North/South) makes sense, but one idea that has some alternative support is the so-called “zipper” format in football (with rivals separated) and a three-division format in basketball.  Wazzu blog CougCenter explains these two ideas.
3. So… about the new Big 12/10.  We wrote yesterday that we think the league will become a much stronger basketball conference as a result of the loss of bottom-feeders Nebraska and Colorado, but we’re not the only ones who thinks that handing the keys to the conference almost completely over to Texas will result in storm clouds again a few years down the road.  The Pac-11 was smart to not allow UT to wield such disproportionate influence in its league for fear of upsetting the others members — how will this ultimately play in the rest of the Big 12/10 when the collective back-slapping and good tidings die down?
4. Remember Brad Stevens?  He says that the newfound fame that his Butler program and he personally enjoyed throughout March and April of this year is finally dying down.  Undoubtedly true, but it’ll pick back up again in December when people realize that Butler is 11-0 and in the top 10 again.
5. We wondered aloud about Washington’s Abdul Gaddy all of last season.  For a player rated out of high school as the second-best point guard behind John Wall, his season averages of 3.9 PPG and 2.2 APG on 41% shooting (15% from three) are completely ridiculous.  He’s playing in the U-18 men’s national team this week and Percy Allen of the Seattle Times caught up with him.  The problem?  Missing his swagger, apparently (translation: thinking he was better than he actually was).