Here comes Kansas. Kansas in talks with BIG?
NFW Michigan would be "relegated" to anything. Our problems beating OSU notwithstanding, every conference outside of the SEC (and likely including them, tbh) would allow us to join.
None of the B1G current teams are going anywhere. Bank on it.
If ND doesn't take, I think - given discussions with Kansas - that Missouri would make the most sense to try to poach. B1G snubbed them once, but they do oppose Texas/Oklahoma to SEC.
Missouri has no reason to leave the SEC
I don't think there is any amount of money that would convince ND to join the B1G. I think there is a deep seated hatred for the conference.
You'd think it would either be ND or Pitt or something. In reality, I just can't see the B1G abandoning the natural geographic footprint to pull a PAC12 school or one of the other Texas schools or something.
I wouldn't mind trying to pull Mizzou from the SEC though. I always thought they would've been a good fit in the B1G.
Mizzou to me is another one of those maybes. Honestly just like Rutgers and Maryland feel wrong because they are too East Coast, so too does Mizzou, Kansas and Nebraska because they are prairie belt. Though some may call that Midwest it depends on your definition. I actually think of Missouri as being more like the border states of the South than Midwest. Much more like an Arkansas, Kentucky, etc. Would rather go after Syracuse and ND but I know those won’t happen. If absolutely necessary then Iowa St since at least they are in the same state as one of our existing members.
Why not stop at 16? Go to 20, and grab UNC, Duke, NCSU, Virginia and Va Tech.
All the chips have to go into the table pretty soon, or we’re gonna get left behind.
I have always hated this idea but it is probably where we are heading. 2 divisions and you only play your division unless you are in the title game.
I get that. But there's a huge sleaze factor associated with their basketball program. I mean, they gave their coach a lifetime contract after this:
KU is charged with five Level I violations (the most serious) stemming from the FBI basketball scandal that emerged in September 2017. The NCAA called the violations "egregious" and "severe." The NCAA says Self is responsible for violation of the coach responsibility bylaw.
KU is absolutely a dirty basketball program but at this point I'm sort of ambivalent about it all, and other big-name basketball programs thrown around (like UNC) aren't great either.
College basketball in general has been dirty since the 40s. Anyone who believes Adolph Rupp and John Wooden ran anything resembling a clean program probably bought ocean front property in Iowa.
Play the game or turn into University of Chicago. The price of poker is going up.
Oh absolutely. Now, I do think there are levels of dirtiness (like Fab Five or UNLV guys taking money vs. Baylor HC trying to get his players to lie about Patrick Dennehy to investigators) and I'd hope the conference had a line they wouldn't let teams cross but I'm not going to disqualify expansion because *shock* people are making money under the table.
Extends Great Plains footprint
Do we need a footprint there? It's not exactly booming.
Gets you into the Wichita/Kansas City area at least.
they have a pulse and they might be available. it's literally the only criteria.
We're all playing checkers and Lance Leipold was playing 3-D chess the whole time. Damn.
Kansas brings nothing but a deeply corrupt and perpetually overrated basketball program.
They bring a TV audience that we don't currently have. I would guess Iowa St is next. Then we can have Matt Campbell and Harbaugh go head to head.
Kansas does not bring a large TV audience. But we'd really corner the Topeka market.
Kansas population = 2.9 million.
Oklahoma population = 3.9 million.
Not large, but if everyone that has cable in the area is required to carry the the B1G network, it's pretty significant.
Don't forget the Kansas City area on the Missouri side. That's a pretty large DMA
Because it worked out so great last time we went after a school for cable subscribers, right?
Winner get the Michigan job?
KU has a good hoops program but they bring next to nothing else. Half the KC metro under a TV market paradigm that’s a decade old?
KU doesn’t fit academically. They have the bare min (16?) D1 sports to maintain D1 status.
there’s nothing there and the B10 isn’t making a move for basketball or for any market in freaking Kansas. this is desperation from KU.
B10 needs to go after UVA and UNC and ND and GT
thats 3 huge growing markets and a national brand for football. And gets a foothold in the south.
IMO the ACC is getting squeezed out of the southern talent pool by the SEC. Football money has bled into hoops so much that the SEC is a better hoops conf than the ACC. B10 needs to approach the best ACC schools and make a push now.
I'm not going to defend KU's academics too much but they're generally better than Nebraska on that front and are at least elite in basketball. Someone posted elsewhere that the ACC's media contract basically locks in team revenue until 2036 regardless of conference affiliation, so even if those teams jumped I'm not sure if it makes financial sense for them right now. Maybe you sweeten the pot enough but at that point you're paying a ton of money to "buy out" UNC and UVA and I'm not sure if they give you a ton more access.
I agree its desperation by Kansas but that's sort of the name of the game right now. OU going to the SEC is as much them not wanting to be left out in the cold as anything else.
"... deeply corrupt and perpetually overrated ..."
Couldn't have said it better ...
I suppose they have "tradition," though, right? : )
What's the matter with Kansas?
1) No Hockey
2) Adds nothing of value to the big ten west for football
3) makes it harder for Michigan to win basketball banners
I don’t see the point of this at all.
Haha i think his post was just a play on the "What's The Matter With Kansas" editorial from the 1896 election and a (much) later book about Kansas politics by the same name
ding ding. Though Brian Griese did nicely summarize what's the matter with Kansas
Sorry, your joke flew way over my head as you can tell.
Great book by the way.
Please no.
Would have loved for the next B1G expansion to include something like Texas & Oklahoma.
I thought a few years ago that OU wasn't going anywhere without Oklahoma State...anyone know what happened with that? I kinda thought the OK pair might have been future B1G members.
There's no one in the Big 12 that I think is a great culture fit to join the B1G
Texas would be a great fit, but I'm not sure they qualify as in the Big 12 at the moment.
Iowa State?
Would the addition of Cincinnati piss off the Ohio State brass?
Ohio State will never allow another in-state competitor. They like being the top dog by a mile. Same with Penn State and the potential addition of Pitt
That sounds reasonable, but at the same time I kinda wonder if tOSU really cares about anything football-wise that doesn't involve Clemson or Alabama.
While this is true, other teams in the conference (us included) have in-state competitors. It doesn't seem like schools should be able to veto based on those grounds.
Hold the phone!
Kansas can call and pitch themselves all they'd like because they're trying to find the best home possible after the long time coming collapse of the Big 12. It doesn't mean the B1G needs to listen.
I'd rather pick up Oklahoma State or Iowa State. At least they're entertaining.
As a football conference the additions of Rutgers, Maryland, OSU, and ISU would cement us as a second tier conference.
subtraction by addition
Recency bias on your part in calling ISU entertaining. They’re a historically atrocious program in a poor recruiting area and they don’t bring in a new market. They’ve had a couple good years under Campbell but it’s really hard to look at that and assume there’s any long-term sustainability there. Looking at other sports, they seem like they’re middle of the pack at best while slotting in the bottom half of the B1G in academic rankings. I just really don’t see the upside outside of adding a team thats been good in football for a couple years, and there’s a ton of programs out there that do the same thing with other benefits.
Kansas is at least a huge boost to basketball prestige and an introduction into the Wichita/Kansas City markets while expand the footprint of the B1G.
I totally get the Kansas angle from a basketball perspective. But football has always been the primary concern for expansion, no? Football has and always will be (probably) the bread winner of the family. And from a football perspective, Kansas is not a good play. Getting Texas into the B1G west should be the goal, if it's even possible at this point to break up their puppy love with the SEC.
It's not. The SEC is more attractive by far and it's not close. Any rational observer knows this. They are becoming the de facto minor league of the NFL and their basketball is good also. The B1G (especially the West) is not filled with games people really want to see. The SEC is and will be even more so.
I agree that Texas is no longer an option. But adding Kansas to the B1G is not a great move.
Someone get Kenyon Martin on the phone to block the shit out of Kansas and add Cincinnati.
It would be better than Kansas by far. KU's football program hasn't won more than 3 games in a season since 2009.
