The times, they are a changin’. Bob Dylan knew it then, and college athletic fans know it now. The landscape of college athletics has been changing for about a year now. Slowly, however. Very slowly, I’m talking continental drift slow. Nevertheless, a new chapter of conference realignment looks to be near completion, as rumors are swirling of Missouri‘s departure from the Big 12 to the SEC, and West Virginia‘s embarkation from the Big East to the Big 12. Yet, while everyone assumes these moves are official, we need to keep one thing in mind: nothing official has happened yet. Many journalists have tweeted about their athletic departments sources saying it’s a done deal one way or another, and we’re left to wonder what to believe. So, tonight, instead of speculating on what will happen, let’s examine what is being reported about West Virginia. Tomorrow, I’ll discuss Missouri’s rumored “impending” move to the SEC.

Dalton Pepper appears to know nothing about West Virginia's departure to the Big 12

• The Mountaineers, who were once anticipated to be on the short-list of SEC expansion candidates, are reportedly close to leaving the Big East for the Big 12, according to the New York Times. The Times goes on to say that a source inside the Mountaineers athletic department claims they have applied for membership in the Big 12, and have been accepted.
• The MetroNews of West Virginia has an article discussing that while the Mountaineers have a solid athletic spending budget by Big East standards, they will be behind the average in the Big 12.

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1. What’s that? You were worried there wouldn’t be a conference realignment article in today’s Morning Five? Well, never fret. The New York Times is reporting that a Missouri move to the SEC is imminent. Yes, this is news, but I’m not ready to call it fact quite yet. If conference realignment was based strictly off media reports, Texas and Oklahoma would be battling it out for Pac-16 supremacy, and Missouri coach Frank Haith would be studying Purdue and Michigan State film.
2. Billy Kennedy, the new coach of Texas A&M basketball, missed the team’s first practice due to an “unspecified medical condition”.  Kennedy has been directed to sit out by his doctor and will undergo numerous medical tests before returning to Reed Arena. While obviously upset over missing his team’s initial practice, Kennedy said, “don’t worry, I’ll be back soon”. We hope so, Coach. RTC wishes you a speedy recovery.
3. Andy Glockner from SI.com has an article up, reviewing the off-season for every conference in twitter format (140 characters or less). The Big 12 section is humorous and relevant, and actually has a bit of good information peppered in.
4. The Public Policy Polling organization conducted a survey for Nebraska residents, and one of the questions was how they currently felt about their University of Nebraska’s move from the Big 12 to the Big 10. Cornhusker fans aren’t living in the past,a s 65% of residents are glad they bolted to the Big 10, and only 12% wished they still remained in the Big 12.
5. Kansas has been dealt a blow, as the NCAA declared two Jayhawk players partially ineligible for this season. Ben McLemore and Jamari Traylor will not be allowed to suit up for the Jayhawks until second semester. I wouldn’t write off the Jayhawks quite yet, however. Every time events occur that appear to lead to a Jayhawk rebuilding season, they win the Big 12.

1. BYU athletic director Tom Helmoe publicly discussed his school’s involvement with the Big 12 in the conference realignment saga in an interview before the BYU-Oregon State football game. Like pretty much every AD involved in conference realignment, Helmoe played it very safe, stating nothing but the facts. He discussed how BYU did not have an invitation but would not comment further on what BYU’s desired result might be during the conference realignment era. He did admit, however, that discussions with the Big 12 have occurred, and that BYU has been “monitoring the landscape of conference realignment for some time.”
2. The Columbia Tribune recently posted a story debating whether or not the alleged financial benefits of Missouri joining the SEC were true. The AP recently broke the news of a study conducted by the Missouri Board of Curators determining that Missouri could earn up to $12 million more annually if it joined the SEC. Big 12 commissioner Chuck Neinas stated, “I don’t think that’s accurate… I’d like to see the report. I’d like to know who wrote it.”
3. The Wichita Eagle has a story up about Kansas State and how the integration of newcomers and veterans is going. Frank Martin stated, “We’ve got a group of guys who are extremely experienced and then we’ve got a group of guys who have absolutely no experience”. One thing is for certain, the Wildcats will have a different look about them this season than they have in recent years.
4. Also in K-State news, coach Frank Martin said that the addition of TCU to the Big 12 will greatly help Kansas State recruiting. “I’m ecstatic about it. We recruit Dallas a lot,” said Martin, who expresses his pleasure in being able to tell the parents of Dallas-area recruits that they will be able to see their sons play in an arena much closer in proximity to their homes when compared to Waco, College Station, Lubbock and Austin.
5. The KC Star analyzed the regional differences between various parts of The Show-Me State, from it’s corn fields in the north to the urban sprawl in St. Louis to the mountains in the southwest portion and the southern feel in the bootheel.  Depending on where someone lives in the state of Missouri, it’s likely that geography and culture in that locale influences the prevailing opinion on whether Mizzou should jump ship to the SEC, Big Ten or stick with the Big 12.  It’s an interesting analysis for a state that often has trouble describing its own character as a result of its central location stuck between the Midwest, Southeast and Great Plains.

1. And so begins the shortest ‘preseason’ in all of sports, the 24 days between the start of official practice — as celebrated by Midnight Madness all across the country on Friday night — and the opening games of the 2kSports Coaches vs. Cancer Classic, on November 7.  It’s an astonishingly short window, but all that means is that we’re that much closer to seeing bona fide college basketball on our televisions and in our local arenas very soon.  Let’s get you caught up.  On Friday night we put together a Storytelling piece capturing some of the excitement around the land as MM tipped off everywhere.  Yesterday we put together a list of the 13 best dunks from this year’s proceedings, several of which will have you drooling in anticipation for more.  Immediately following this post, we’ll publish the most interesting Friday night clips from several of the blue-blooded programs like Duke, Kentucky, Connecticut, Kansas, North Carolina and several others.  Midnight Madness weekend is great because it represents a new beginning — every team is still unblemished and ostensibly has an equal shot at doing something special.  Welcome to next year.
2. During ESPNU’s Midnight Madness coverage Friday night, Andy Katz spent as much time talking football through the lens of conference realignment scenarios as he did discussing his favored sport.  Word leaked during the broadcast that the Big East had reportedly offered five schools membership to the conference — Houston, SMU and Central Florida in all sports, and Boise State and Air Force in football only.  The goal, of course, is to keep the conference’s automatic BCS bid, but each step ‘forward’ appears increasingly desperate for a league that built its reputation on basketball three decades ago and has never really been that significant on the gridiron.  As Lenn Robbins writes in the NY Post, the conference doesn’t expect to announce any movement until after the Big East’s basketball media day this week, but we truly feel that grabbing schools without regard for regional ties and rivalries is a shortsighted strategy doomed to ultimately fail.  The non-BCS Big East schools very seriously considered walking away from the rest of this madness, and who would blame them at this point?
3. Aaron Torres writes that this will be a “golden season” in college basketball, and he makes a compelling case for his argument.  As everyone here already knows, the number of elite players who returned to college rather than face an NBA lockout, when combined with an exceptional class of incoming freshmen, could produce a quality of depth in the sport that we haven’t seen in a number of years.  Torres contends that the last time college basketball was this talented was in 1995-96, at the cusp of the preps-to-pros trend (Kevin Garnett skipped college that year) and featuring upperclassman stars such as Allen Iverson, Marcus Camby, Tim Duncan, Steve Nash, Ray Allen, among others.  Let’s hope that the NBA’s eventual collective bargaining agreement makes seasons like this the future norm with a two-and-done rule allowing us to enjoy players for a couple of years prior to moving on to the professional ranks.
4. Seth Davis gives us answers to his ten burning questions as we head into the 2011-12 season.  Starting today, we plan on rolling out our own list of 20 questions over the next several weeks, but we can guarantee you that none of ours will involve Utah State senior superfan, Bill Sproat.  We’re honestly not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but the one answer he gives that we can completely get on board with is #7 — which underachieving big man will make a giant leap?  The answer to that question is legitimately the difference between his team being a borderline Top 10 to 15 squad and the overall best team in America.  Tell us what you think.
5. Kansas released some disappointing news on Friday afternoon just before its Late Night in the Phog celebration.  Two more members of its freshman class, Ben McLemore and Jamari Traylor, will join Braeden Anderson as ineligible to play this season because of high school transcript issues (all three attended three different high schools).  For a team suffering considerable losses of key personnel from last season’s Elite Eight squad, this is another blow to Bill Self’s aspiration to win an eighth straight Big 12 regular season title in 2011-12.  He worked to temper expectations on Friday, especially now that his Jayhawks are down to eight legitimate players and in need of significant improvements from returnees such as Tyshawn Taylor and Thomas Robinson.  If Self can outlast Baylor, Missouri and Texas A&M again this year in the Big 12 race, he’ll certainly deserve any postseason COY accolades he gets.

Whether you are against ACC expansion or a fervent proponent of a wildly dominant Atlantic Coast Mega-Conference, there is one thing that we can agree on: Fourteen is a really awkward number.  Mike Krzyzewski, supposedly one of the driving forces behind expansion, spent a good deal of Duke’s media day explaining the problem with fourteen team conferences. Citing a distaste for pods, he discussed a two-division based strategy for scheduling that, while reasonable, would yield a nineteen-game conference schedule and an uneven number of home and away games. While Krzyzewski kind of brushes it off, this is the kind of schedule imbalance that can end up deciding which team wins the ACC regular season title. In Krzyzewski’s mind, however, the problem with his plan just bolsters the case for a sixteen-team league.

Coach K Isn't Shy to Voice His Opinion

Of course, the problems don’t stop with the regular season conference schedule: Fourteen teams would significantly complicate the ACC Tournament. Craig Littlepage, the athletic director at Virginia, has broken down a number of possibilities for the conference tournament, none that really seem particularly appealing. His concerns seem legitimate in that it’s hard to make a fair bracket with fourteen teams. Unless the conference were to resort to some form of multi-round byes, we’re looking at an extra day of competition or morning games. Considering the fact that Thursday is a pretty sparsely attended part of the conference tournament, adding  Wednesday games might be stretching things out far too much. When the Big East had fourteen teams, the conference solved the problem by simply excluding the last two teams. This approach seems like it would be despised in the ACC, but it’s hard to see many other effective approaches. Obviously, there could be an elegant solution to the fourteen-team problem, but at the moment, no one can seem to put their finger on it.

The expansion of the Atlantic Coast Conference seemed to reach a point of stability in the last few weeks, despite the uproar over Boston College’s role in denying Connecticut’s admittance. It seems, however, that true stability on the basketball side might be impossible with fourteen teams. Fourteen is an awkward, challenging number. With all of the accompanying challenges, complications, and troubles, it’s easy to see that sixteen is a more appealing configuration. Things may not be as stable and set as they seem.

1. Coaches with pretty impressive pedigrees cannot seem to stop talking about conference realignment these days.  Yet with as much power and influence as these guys have at their respective universities, they wield very little leverage in the big-picture chess match being played by various college chancellors, presidents, and boards of directors.  Connecticut head coach Jim Calhoun and Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski provided opposing viewpoints on the matter Wednesday, with the four-time national champion coming out strongly in favor of further expansion of the ACC from 14 to 16 teams, and the three-time national champion unequivocally stating that his preference is for the Huskies to stick with the Big East.  You have to believe that if John Swofford’s league eventually makes another move, one of the first inquiries will in fact be to the folks in Storrs, but maybe by that time both Calhoun and K will be in rocking chairs somewhere.
2. Sticking with Connecticut, remember that Michael Bradley kid — you know, the one who UConn took a scholarship from to give it to a basketball phenom who likely will be there for one year?  Yeah, that kid.  He came out on the record Wednesday stating that he has since been given a financial aid package and that he was only one of several players who stepped forward for the good of the team when it became apparent that prep phenom Andre Drummond was prepared to enroll.  Even UConn president Susan Herbst got into the act, saying that Bradley has been “taken care of.”  The company line was apparently in full effect in Storrs on this day, but there’s one thing we absolutely want to see happen here — five years down the road when Drummond is off to the NBA and Bradley has moved on to whatever great things also await him, we truly hope that he receives a registered letter from his former teammate containing a certified check for the full amount of any student loan (plus interest) he might have taken out to make this happen.  Drummond says that he and Bradley have a “great relationship” and are “really cool” with each other — well,  if so, he’ll do the right thing and eventually pay the walk-on back in spades.
3. This is a baseball story more than a college basketball story, but we don’t care.  TBS/TNT’s Ernie Johnson has entertained us for years as the host of still the very best sports show on television, Inside the NBA.  Last year with Turner Sports’ nascent involvement with the NCAA Tournament, Johnson played host for some of the studio coverage along with his good buddies Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley, and an assortment of others.  He’s also a huge baseball guy, calling games for TBS as his father (whom he lost in August at the age of 87) had before him.  In a normal year, he’d be doing the MLB playoffs right now before setting off to another hilarious NBA season in the studio with The Jet and Chuck — but this isn’t a normal year.  Rather, Johnson, his wife and family have been keeping vigil with their eldest adopted son, Michael (one of four adopted children they have), who is suffering from muscular dystrophy and pneumonia in an Atlanta hospital.  It’s a tragic story, but one that really shows just how good a guy Johnson is — we encourage everyone to read it.
4. Because of that NBA lockout thing, college basketball fans from all over the country are getting a rare opportunity to see some of their former (but not too former) stars in action on their school’s hardwood again as players seek ways to fill their time when they otherwise would have been in training camps.  Syracuse will hold a scrimmage on Friday night at the Carrier Dome featuring two teams of ‘Orange Legends,’ and they’re really not kidding with that name — tentative rosters include Carmelo Anthony, John Wallace, Hakim Warrick, Wes Johnson and Gerry McNamara — or, in other words, most of the best SU players of the last 15 years.  We’ll definitely be tuning into the ESPNU special on Friday night for a taste of this.
5. Is it just us, or did LSU head coach Trent Johnson get a little too brazen in his dodgeball attack on a Tiger cheerleader in this video taken Tuesday at the Maravich Maniacs dodgeball tournament in Baton Rouge?  Start at the 1:00 mark — the dude does not hold back!

1. The Mikan Drill: Did I hear correctly that you wanted an in-depth analysis of Maryland sophomore star Terrell Stoglin‘s offensive game and Mark Turgeon‘s tempo? If so, you’ve come to the right place. Seriously, these are a couple of great articles from one of the most interesting and informative basketball bloggers on the Internet. To summarize, Stoglin is a beast in transition, but Turgeon teams tend to execute long half court sets. This is going to be something Turgeon has to reconcile, as his team this year is undermanned and undersized.
2. Baltimore Sun – Tracking the Terps: Speaking of Maryland, here’s quite the informative back-and-forth on Maryland hoops from beat writer Jeff Barker and reporter Don Markus. The best part of the article is when Barker calls the new coach “Turg.” I’m not sure how popular this nickname is yet, but I’m in total support with the slight caveat in that I’d make it “The Turg.” Anyway, in addition to cool nicknames and puns (“shorthanded”), the discussion looks at the roster’s woes and the eventual possibility of Turgeon moving back out to Kansas to take the helm in Lawrence.
3. Boston Globe: And just when you thought the Globe was done with conference realignment, but the paper has an editorial on how college sports have lost sight of its academics whilst in pursuit of television dollars. This comes just a couple of days after the ACC officially announced it is renegotiating its TV contract. While I totally agree with many points of the article (namely, colleges aren’t educating enough athletes), I think the author and I would differ on how to fix the problem. Regardless, it’s an informed article pointing out a problem that is only growing for the NCAA: “the basic integrity of college athletics rests on the idea that student-athletes are receiving an education.”
4. Charlotte Observer: North Carolina’s longtime basketball bus driver, “Super” Dave Harder died suddenly last week. Harder was a team constant over the last two decades, famously navigating through the roughest weather conditions to shootarounds and road games. He was even honored with a championship ring for his service to the Tar Heels after the 2004-05 season. North Carolina road trips just won’t be the same this year without Super Dave navigating the way.
5. Finally, a quick shout out to some in-house content. If you haven’t already, make sure to check out Zach Hayes’ feature on the Top Ten Players You Don’t Know Yet (But Soon Will). Two ACC players made the list: Erick Green of Virginia Tech and Terrell Stoglin of Maryland. We’ve certainly talked a lot about Stoglin here, but Green is definitely a sleeper for one of the All-ACC squads (and I wouldn’t be shocked if Stoglin ended up on the first team).

The Boston Globe‘s recent article “Expansion Was Power Move by the ACC” stirred a minor uproar on Twitter over the weekend largely for two reasons:

1. Boston College changed the course of conference realignment by vetoing Connecticut as the second addition (which led to Pittsburgh‘s invitation), much like Virginia did with Syracuse in 2003.
2. Boston College Athletic Director Gene DeFilippo stated, “TV – ESPN – is the one who told us what to do.”

The first point is huge. If true, Boston College, one of the most recent additions to the ACC that also sports a lukewarm fanbase in both basketball and football, managed to affect which schools received an ACC invitation. This is eerily similar to Virginia’s power play in 2003 when the Cavaliers threatened to pull out of the conference if it wouldn’t add Virginia Tech instead of Syracuse. The only differences: Virginia is a founding member, and (by DeFilippo’s account) the Eagles didn’t threaten to leave the conference. For the record, I still think Pittsburgh is a better fit for the ACC as I worry about Connecticut’s long term relevance once Jim Calhoun retires.

Credit: Wendy Maeda/Boston Globe staff

DeFilippo denied rumors that Duke shouted the loudest during expansion meetings and instead cited recent massive TV deals and an interest in increasing the conference’s “footprint” in the Northeast. This statement subtly implies that Boston College had more of an influence on conference realignment than Duke, which would be surprising to say the least. I do agree that TV contracts are at the center of everything, but the Northeast brings far more basketball fans than football fans (regardless of school). More interesting is the claim that the shift had more to do with football than basketball, as neither Pitt or Syracuse offers much consistency on the gridiron, but both are national basketball powers. All of these factors lead me to question DeFilippo’s recount of the events. That is not to say that he is lying, just exaggerating a little around the edges.

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Big 12 football fans are salivating at the league’s invitation to Texas Christian, which has appeared in two straight BCS bowl games and has cemented itself as a national power during the past decade or so.  With 17 conference titles and NFL stars like LaDainian Tomlinson roaming around, the invitation makes logical and economic sense for all parties involved.

Those Are Known as Empty Seats

There’s just one problem, though: the hoops aspect. The addition of TCU looks like a disastrous scenario for the Big 12 in the short-term. Forget for a moment even the lack of history for the Horned Frogs (and, just a warning, there’s not much). The larger problem is the current state of TCU hoops, which, to put it nicely, can only be described as having “fallen on hard times.” In three years, coach Jim Christian has never finished above .500, and his team limped to a 1-15 record in Mountain West play a year ago. As a whole, the program hasn’t made the NCAA Tournament since 1998, back when Billy Tubbs coached the team, and it has not finished with a winning record in its league since 2001.

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