Potential effect of D1 conferences realignment

[Ralph Turner]

Utah becomes the 12th.

[David Collinge]

Okay, I'm only posting this because I'm bored. 

I heard a rumor the other day, about 6th-hand, that the NCAC was considering a radical expansion, to 16 or more teams, encompassing some members of the PrAC and perhaps some HCAC schools.  Now, as I say, I got this from a friend of a friend of a friend at a wedding, and it seems likely that it was intended as a joke; not being within 2000 miles of the source, I have no way to judge.  It sounds like a loony idea to me, considering the issues of playoff access that the ASC deals with.  (Personally, I was hoping to see an 8-team NCAC going forward, but it was not to be.)  Joke or earnest, crazy or sane, at a minimum it's an interesting off-season discussion-starter.

[OxyBob]

This just in...

USC has left the Pac-10 to join the SCIAC, which will now be known as the USCiac. Unfortunately, effective immediately, the entire conference has been put on probation and banned from postseason play for the next 25 years.

OxyBob

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Sorry to come late to the party - moving has kept me out of the loop a bit.

An AD friend of mine laid out this whole "superconference" scenario for me four or five years ago.  At the time it seemed like a far-fetched conspiracy theory - now, obviously, not so much.

They'll take 64 teams and bolt the NCAA entirely.  It'll happen soon.  The Big-12 is working to keep it from happening without them, but Texas will be leaving soon enough.

They'll be able to make the chances they want in the rules and have more than enough money to fund a governance infrastructure (if they even want one).

It makes a lot of sense - four 16 team conference with two 8 team divisions each.  For football, its an easy 8 game playoff.  For basketball, you just stick all 64 teams onto a bracket.  The big schools have been looking for a way to get the March Madness money for a while now - this circumvents the NCAA entirely.

My big questions is what do the small schools do after that?  There's basically no money left for D3 championships to exist - at least on a national scale.

[Ralph Turner]

Sorry to come late to the party - moving has kept me out of the loop a bit.

An AD friend of mine laid out this whole "superconference" scenario for me four or five years ago.  At the time it seemed like a far-fetched conspiracy theory - now, obviously, not so much.

They'll take 64 teams and bolt the NCAA entirely.  It'll happen soon.  The Big-12 is working to keep it from happening without them, but Texas will be leaving soon enough.

They'll be able to make the chances they want in the rules and have more than enough money to fund a governance infrastructure (if they even want one).

It makes a lot of sense - four 16 team conference with two 8 team divisions each.  For football, its an easy 8 game playoff.  For basketball, you just stick all 64 teams onto a bracket.  The big schools have been looking for a way to get the March Madness money for a while now - this circumvents the NCAA entirely.

My big questions is what do the small schools do after that?  There's basically no money left for D3 championships to exist - at least on a national scale.

Okay

Conference	Teams
PAC-10	12
Big Ten	12
SEC	12
ACC	12
Big East Football	8
Total	56

Who gets invited?

What happens to Notre Dame?
Who are the 8 best teams that are left?

[doolittledog]

Sorry to come late to the party - moving has kept me out of the loop a bit.

An AD friend of mine laid out this whole "superconference" scenario for me four or five years ago.  At the time it seemed like a far-fetched conspiracy theory - now, obviously, not so much.

They'll take 64 teams and bolt the NCAA entirely.  It'll happen soon.  The Big-12 is working to keep it from happening without them, but Texas will be leaving soon enough.

They'll be able to make the chances they want in the rules and have more than enough money to fund a governance infrastructure (if they even want one).

It makes a lot of sense - four 16 team conference with two 8 team divisions each.  For football, its an easy 8 game playoff.  For basketball, you just stick all 64 teams onto a bracket.  The big schools have been looking for a way to get the March Madness money for a while now - this circumvents the NCAA entirely.

My big questions is what do the small schools do after that?  There's basically no money left for D3 championships to exist - at least on a national scale.

Okay

Conference	Teams
PAC-10	12
Big Ten	12
SEC	12
ACC	12
Big East Football	8
Total	56

Who gets invited?

Would some teams currently in those conferences get kicked to the curb?  Vanderbilt???  Northwestern???  Then it could get really confusing and political. 

If everyone stays from those conferences you can forget about any team from the MAC, Sun Belt and C-USA getting in to the Super 64.  It would probably be some combination of teams from the Big 12 and Mountain West Conference.  Having a bit of basketball history and location near a large market would help...like if you are Kansas or Mizzou.

Something tells me though that this talk is all a bunch of conspiracy stories...it sounds plausible...but will never happen.  At least I hope.  I like my small D3 school being a port of the same orginization as my big state school. 

[hickory_cornhusker]

Sorry to come late to the party - moving has kept me out of the loop a bit.

An AD friend of mine laid out this whole "superconference" scenario for me four or five years ago.  At the time it seemed like a far-fetched conspiracy theory - now, obviously, not so much.

They'll take 64 teams and bolt the NCAA entirely.  It'll happen soon.  The Big-12 is working to keep it from happening without them, but Texas will be leaving soon enough.

They'll be able to make the chances they want in the rules and have more than enough money to fund a governance infrastructure (if they even want one).

It makes a lot of sense - four 16 team conference with two 8 team divisions each.  For football, its an easy 8 game playoff.  For basketball, you just stick all 64 teams onto a bracket.  The big schools have been looking for a way to get the March Madness money for a while now - this circumvents the NCAA entirely.

My big questions is what do the small schools do after that?  There's basically no money left for D3 championships to exist - at least on a national scale.

Okay

Conference	Teams
PAC-10	12
Big Ten	12
SEC	12
ACC	12
Big East Football	8
Total	56

Who gets invited?

What happens to Notre Dame?
Who are the 8 best teams that are left?

Notre Dame would join if it comes to that. They may value their independence but they'll give it up to stay in the top tier of football. Your numbers are also leaving out the ten teams still in the Big 12. Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma would certainly be part of that. That gets you to 60. Kansas would probably be involved and add Kansas State with them. Last two spots be a toss up between Missouri, Texas Tech and Oklahoma State.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I can tell you pretty easily what makes the most sense.  However, with the schools and leagues competing with each other, it may not work out so nicely.  We've already seen Utah get invited to the PAC-10 - a team I wouldn't have expected to get into the Big-64.  So we're likely to see some messy situations in the next few years as it all sorts out.

Here's a list of how it may work - at least, what I see as the easiest scenario:

PAC-10: All current members + Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Kansas State, and Iowa State or Texas Tech.

Big-10: All current members + Nebraska, Notre Dame, Syracuse, Rutgers, and either WVU or Pittsburgh.

SEC: All current members + Texas, A&M, Oklahoma, OKSt

ACC: All current members + Louisville, UConn, WVU or Pitt, and either Cincinatti or South Florida.

This encompasses all of the major BCS teams with few exceptions.  The PAC-10 adding Utah may have cost either Iowa State or Texas Tech a place in the 64.  Baylor is almost assuredly out.  The other loss is either S. Florida or Cincinatti - neither school with a huge football tradition.

The big questions will be whether academics wins our over football in Texas.  UT doesn't like the academic profile of the SEC, but obviously it would be a nice football move.  If the Texas schools do move west, you might see the SEC poach teams from the ACC, which will create a really crazy cascade and then who knows who gets left out?

[David Collinge]

If West Virginia is invited to join the Big Ten, it will mean that the Big Ten no longer has any significance beyond being a group of football-playing universities in the same general part of the country.  I can't see this ever happening--or maybe I just refuse to.

[Gregory Sager]

Big-10: All current members + Nebraska, Notre Dame, Syracuse, Rutgers, and either WVU or Pittsburgh.

If West Virginia is invited to join the Big Ten, it will mean that the Big Ten no longer has any significance beyond being a group of football-playing universities in the same general part of the country.  I can't see this ever happening--or maybe I just refuse to.

West Virginia will not join the Big Ten. Yes, that conference is just as mercenary as the other D1 power conferences, but the academic cachet of the eleven member schools still means enough to their respective administrations to influence who gets to join the club.

There are two exclusive academic consortia to which every Big Ten school belongs. One is the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, which consists of the eleven Big Ten schools plus former Big Ten member the University of Chicago. The twelve schools share a research fund that totals somewhere north of five billion dollars. Obviously, that's a club to which the current Big Ten members control admission, so Nebraska and anyone else invited to join the league will also be invited to join the CIC. The more important academic collective, however, is the Association of American Universities, which counts among its sixty members the most prestigious research universities in the United States and Canada. The Big Ten is the only D1 conference that can make the claim that each of its members is also an AAU member (Dartmouth is not an AAU member, so the Ivy League can't make that claim).

West Virginia is not an AAU member. Nebraska, Syracuse, Rutgers, and Pittsburgh are. Admission to the AAU is by invitation only, and three-quarters of the sixty member schools have to vote "yea" for a new school to join. Interestingly, Notre Dame is not an AAU member, although, as a highly-ranked research institution, it's certainly qualified to be one. This has been a matter of some discussion in the media in recent years, given the ongoing interest in having Notre Dame join the Big Ten; the consensus seems to be that, if the Big Ten members pushed for it, Notre Dame would be accepted into the AAU with little problem. It's a lot less likely that that would happen if the Big Ten put forth West Virginia as a prospective AAU member, since WVU has far less impressive credentials as a research university than does Notre Dame.

Since this is, after all, a website about Division III and not a website about Division I, I'll add that there are two leagues whose entire membership is in the AAU: The Big Ten and our own University Athletic Association. The eight members of the UAA constitute over three-quarters of the D3 contingent of the AAU; the other three D3 members are Caltech, Johns Hopkins, and MIT. Two other D3 members, Catholic and Clark, have left the AAU of their own accord within the past dozen years.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I'll amend my list and just throw Pitt into the Big-10 and WVU to the ACC.