They would but there's a lot of momentum towards a new look basketball tournament that would deviate from the NCAA similar to the CFP being it's own entity. This would leave the little conferences on the outside looking in. This and decoupling football and basketball TV revenue are the driving factors behind the Big12/Yormak's vision.
Gonzaga to join the Big 12?
- Thread starter BigJCy
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If the tournament is ruined I cannot be held accountable for my actions.
Maybe nothing keeps USC/UCLA/Ore/Washginton...but if the Pac had a time machine and the goal was to keep the other 8 programs together, it's hard to imagine a better play than them bringing Gonzaga basketball in really fast along with probably SDSU as full member. Beyond that it gets into kind of far flung stuff, but it seems they should have been working on it asap and you never even heard about it they way you heard about Yormark working UConn and Gonzaga.
Same. I hate the idea too but conferences are getting more and more power hungry and the NCAA will surely figure out a way to F it up and make the decision easy for TV and conference execs.
I really doubt this would happen. Cinderellas are a huge part of the tournament.
If there's a new tournament, it'd be the power conferences essentially establishing a new tournament with the same format. The teams from the smaller conferences would accept invites because the payouts would likely be larger (because a power-conference-owned tournament wouldnt be distributing a lot of those funds elsewhere the way the NCAA uses the tournament to fund a ton of its other operations).
Yeah, it's the only reason I watch non-ISU college basketball.
The product absolutely sucks compared to the NBA playoffs if it was just KU/Duke/Kentucky/UCLA/Arizona/Uconn going at it year after year.
The NIT changes were a test balloon for doing away with auto bids.
It's coming and it's going to ruin the tournament.
It's coming and it's going to ruin the tournament.
When a change helps an awful program like Nebraska and hurts superior programs like UNI or Drake...it's a freaking horrible change.
I could be wrong but that's exactly how I read the NIT changes.
Just would like to flog my dead horse again. Every time Gonzaga comes up this is what I think.
I'm just not that excited about the prospects of adding Gonzaga to the conference. Never have been.
Especially when UConn, Louisville, Pitt, nc state and others are out there or will 100% be out there soon.
Mark Few has been Gonzaga's coach for 24 years. He is 60 years old.
Gonzaga was irrelevant on the basketball scene before Few arrived and I fear they will return to irrelevancy after he leaves in a few years.
All that said, I'm pretty sure Mr. Yormark knows more than I do when it comes to expansion. I just worry he could overextend our conference.
Gonzaga was irrelevant on the basketball scene before Few arrived and I fear they will return to irrelevancy after he leaves in a few years.
All that said, I'm pretty sure Mr. Yormark knows more than I do when it comes to expansion. I just worry he could overextend our conference.
They've only had 1 losing season since 1980. Getting into the Big 12 they could stay an elite basketball program.
CycloneErik
Well-Known Member
That's the case for everyone in the new Big 12 outside of Kansas. We're all going to potentially teeter on irrelevance with one bad hire.
Disagree. With the exception of the new additions, the Big 12 schools are power 5 schools and always have been. Gonzaga has never been a power 5 school, so theirs is a very different situation.
I can't explain exactly why but the confernce has been ridiculously good since Nebraska left. Dropping one horrible program definitely helped. CU was not great when they left either but has been on an upswing. A&M maybe got better after leaving, Missouri fell off a cliff when they left. WVU stayed the same when they joined. TCU improved radically when they joined.
In terms of depth it's really almost a separate level compared to other major conferences.
The current 14 teams comprise 8 of the top 27 in KenPom.
Next year's 16 teams comprise 8 of the top 24 in KenPom. A full 1/3 of the top 25. Half of a giant 16 team conference showing top 24 in a computer metric.
It's been a solid decade or more this kind of depth per team, maybe it's a phase but it's getting to be a long phase.
CycloneErik
Well-Known Member
They don't play football. That's really not a fair shake. There's not much they can do about their geography or historical league affiliation.
Dan Monson had them in the Elite 8 before Few got the job.
It's impossible to go to 9 consecutive second weekends of the tournament and not be an elite program.
Not entirely true. Monson was their coach a couple years before Few and did well enough to leverage that into the Gopher HC job.
With the NIL era I feel that helps basketball only schools focus their $. Plus, because they aren't a 30k+ student campus, the smaller environment (<10K) will always be attractive for some student-athletes.
Gonzaga beats up on a bunch of weak teams in their conference every year and gets a favorable NCAA seed which allows them to usually get past the first weekend.
If Gonzaga played a Big 12 conference schedule, I guarantee their record wouldn't be nearly as glossy (e.g., this year's Cincinnati, UCF, Houston, and BYU football records) and their tournament seed wouldn't be as high.
Would they elevate an already tough Big 12 basketball conference? Yes, for the short term, but I'm not as sure about the long term. Also, admitting a non-football school into the league makes things messy.
If Gonzaga played a Big 12 conference schedule, I guarantee their record wouldn't be nearly as glossy (e.g., this year's Cincinnati, UCF, Houston, and BYU football records) and their tournament seed wouldn't be as high.
Would they elevate an already tough Big 12 basketball conference? Yes, for the short term, but I'm not as sure about the long term. Also, admitting a non-football school into the league makes things messy.
