rams80

Vanderbilt is NOT in Big Ten Country. Vanderbilt is in Nashville, Tennessee. Tennessee is NOT IN BIG TEN COUNTRY. Plus, I've been to a Wandy football game, and I seriously doubt the Big Ten will pull that team in to play Ohio State or Iowa every season. This realignment is all about football, and Vandy brings nothing to the table. Ohio State and Michigan will be in the same division. I'm willing to bet a large amount of money on it. Look at the SEC's top rivalries: the Iron Bowl, the World's Largest Cocktail Party, Battle for the Golden Boot, etc. They all are intra-division. It could easily be argued that Tennessee-Alabama and Georgia-Auburn are just as big. If you have a guaranteed out of division rival, additional rivalries can be preserved.

Notre Dame considers joining any Conference to be beneath them, let alone joining up with the twice-gutted Big East football Conference. The Big East's AQ status is tenuous at best, and that could go away with the next batch of BCS contract negotiations. Interestingly, the Big East football coaches have suggested the Big East offering Notre Dame a "join for football or you are completely gone" ultimatum, but the general thought process behind that move was that if Notre Dame's non-football sports are left homeless and feeling the fiscal pinch, Notre Dame would be more willing to join the Big Ten. This, in turn, theoretically slakes the Big Ten's hunger and they don't rip away a couple of Big East teams. Also, assuming the Big East attempts to soldier on with football, it's likely they will rip more teams away from C-USA. Prime targets would be Memphis (Louisville is told to get bent), Central Florida (Likewise South Florida), and East Carolina. Telling Villanova and Georgetown to haul their football programs to I-A strikes me as a worst case scenario.

And membership in said association is invitation-based. I'm pretty sure such an invitation would be forthcoming were Notre Dame to join the Big Ten. I could be wrong, but I believe joining the AAU was a previous Big Ten expansion hangup -- for Notre Dame. Something about the values not matching up with a Catholic university. Seeing as Notre Dame would have been a Big Ten member as of the early 2000s before some very last minute cold feet on Notre Dame's part, any AAU issues are overblown. There's also the 1998 invitation to join the Big Ten that Notre Dame turned down. --------------------------------- The Big Ten is looking at Rutgers and/or Syracuse not because they are New York's official college teams, but because they would be cause for the Big Ten Network to expand its basic cable base to New York, which among other things has a large current Big Ten alumni base living in the region.

They just kicked Temple out a decade ago. There's no way they will introduce another Temple-caliber program into the Conference.

You know what the NCAA can currently do about conference expansion? *crickets* Some regulatory body, huh?

And membership in said association is invitation-based. I'm pretty sure such an invitation would be forthcoming were Notre Dame to join the Big Ten.

Bump. Don't believe anything you hear until we have Commissioners standing behind podiums.

I'm assuming its the since-denied-yesterday news report out of a Kansas City radio station. BTW...there's a giant honking Big Ten expansion thread already on this board.

So when do the Capitals and Wizards banners come down? You want to honor winning, right?

Problem: Lowell's moving to Albany.

You know, some of those members joined the AAU after they joined the Big Ten. (Michigan State, I'm looking at you.)

I doubt they would admit those 5 schools to the Big Ten. Why wouldn't the Big Ten take those 5? I like to keep traditional rivalries i guess, And also it would be too big for my tastes. What traditional rivalries are getting shivved here that cannot be replaced with a simple non-Conference game? Nebraska-Oklahoma was shot in the face by the Big XII when they adopted a schedule without protected cross-division rivalries, and Nebraska-Colorado is not a rivalry. Missouri can play Kansas at the end of the season annually if they would like. It's even easier for Syracuse to set aside a non-conference basketball game with Georgetown, and since the Big East schedule is what it is, they don't always play twice now.

I doubt they would admit those 5 schools to the Big Ten. Why wouldn't the Big Ten take those 5?

It may transpire that this is accurate. However, this could also be reasonable conjecture based on the Internet rumormongering about the formation of the Tengen Toppa Big Ten. I will not believe this until I see certain Commissioners holding press conferences.

Did my mild sarcasm offend? It's based in truth, though. Much like the ill-fated Kingdom of Poland, the Pac 10 membership has a liberum veto regarding expansion. IIRC Stanford and said veto power are the reason why Colorado and/or BYU are not already members of the Conference.

Congratulations, maybe half of those schools fit the academic profile that the Pac 10 looks for. Seriously. You're not getting some of those schools past Stanford.

Depends on where Phoenix ends up. all things constant. They stay in the west. As God is my witness, I thought Honolulu would work. /Bettman

Thanks, I needed the laugh.

The problem with "evening" out all the divisions IIRC is that there are not enough interleague games on the schedule to make having an odd number of teams in each league work without greatly increasing the number of off days or having off series.

Isn't that...kind of the point? I mean, shooting your biggest rival for Midwest attention in the face less than 20 years in would be a welcome goal, right? Geography is less meaningful when you talk about the money and prestige factor. I also don't the Texas is as married to the Big XII as an institution so much as it is the revenue sharing system it has.

Amen. With the amount of money the Big Ten makes now, combined with the amount of money they stand to make with a Texas expansion, even the water polo team can afford to go to matches in Austin in the aforementioned golden carriages drawn by albino penguins.

Then what about the Pac-10? Every year, UT would play Sooner and the Corps, but just replace Baylor and Texas State with Purdue and Indiana. The Purdue game would be great so we could see who REALLY has the World's Biggest Snare Drum! That intrigues me. Hey, where's "spammy" with all his inside information since he works directly with a D-1 athletic director? ] That's a low blow. To Texas State

I keep seeing the "14 team Big Ten" idea punted around online, and I'm not sure I think its a good idea. College Super Leagues strike me as being more unwieldy than its worth; and I dislike the thought that a football player could theoretically go all 4 years without playing every team in their own Conference. The WAC ended up imploding, and I see minor signs that all is not rosy in the Super East either. That said, adding those teams pretty much would give Jim Delany the ability to drive around the country in a solid gold carriage drawn by albino penguins screaming "I'm rich bitch!" at the top of his voice. Texas alone might do the trick for that. I still think the Texas Legislature is going to be the major obstacle in all of this; the Big Twelve exists because of them, and they will not take kindly to the meal ticket/centerpiece of the Conference running off to join them Yankees.

If admitted, nearly all of the state of Texas which does not have BTN will have to get it due to the Texas Exs who would always see their teams (football, basketball, volleyball) in national games and never in Standard Def. Athletics, academics, research, graduate studies, incremental TV households for the BTN, national reputation/fan base, the "in" to a football recruiting hotbed of La/Tex, a great college town...what's not to like? Losing Tech and Baylor as rivals is worse for those schools than for UT. Sort of makes the thought of adding Mizzou or Rutgers seem silly. This presumes, of course, that the Texas state legislature will let UT-Austin bail on all of those teams without cutting state aid. IIRC this was one of the considerations that led to them joining the Big XII with half the old Southwest Conference. Additionally would Texas want to bail on a very, very cushy revenue sharing deal they have in the Big XII now, and their rivalries with Oklahoma and A&M? (The aforementioned legislators may definitely take issue with bailing on the latter.) Well, Texas pretty much owns the Big Twelve, so why not? (Outside of brand awareness for the Big Ten name.) --------------------------------------------- I'm not sure I'd like to be the Big Twelve Commissioner at the moment, with the Pac 10 sounding like its getting serious about courting Colorado, and the Big Ten possibly poaching Missouri, Texas, or some other team(s) from my league.

Actually, I think several people would think a tournament in flyover country is indeed a step down from playing at MSG. Hey, we're not that bad! EDIT: Also, we get the Final Four once every 5 years is it? MSG is home to the NIT. Talk about big time. Yeah that would be awesome... If the Big Ten tournament was played at Lucas Oil Stadium. Only it's at Conseco.