5 replies to this topic

[warthog]

Big 12 may be on the verge of fracturing

Read more: http://www.kansascit...r#ixzz0ptIWTdop


Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe came to Kansas City this week to galvanize his athletic directors and school presidents in keeping the conference together. But as the Big 12’s annual meetings come to a close today, it appears the conference is closer than ever to falling apart.

Reports that the Pacific-10 Conference would target six Big 12 teams started surfacing early Thursday afternoon. Later, Colorado athletic director Mike Bohn said that he believed his school would be invited to join the Pac-10, along with Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.

“The longer that we were together in Kansas City, it appeared that the rumor of speculation did have some validity,” Bohn told the Boulder Daily Camera.

Asked directly if Oklahoma had been contacted by the Pac-10, Sooners athletic director Joe Castiglione said, “Not yet.”

Beebe and University of Texas president Bill Powers, chairman of the Big 12 board of directors, were scheduled to meet with reporters Thursday after the third day of meetings concluded at the InterContinental Kansas City on the Plaza. They instead canceled the news conference, and both got on an elevator.

Contacted later by The Kansas City Star, Beebe declined to comment.

“I have to honor the board’s directive,” he said.

Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott said his league, which begins its annual meetings today in San Francisco, does not expect to take action soon.

“We have not developed any definitive plans,” Scott said. “We have not extended invitations for expansion, and we do not anticipate any such decisions in the near term.”

The Big 12 previously faced a threat from the Big Ten Conference, which is also exploring expansion. But only two Big 12 teams, Missouri and Nebraska, have been rumored to be targets, and the Big 12 could withstand the loss of a few teams, especially if Texas remained.

If the Pac-10’s reported move happens, the Big 12 won’t exist.

The league would be cut in half, and if the Tigers and Cornhuskers wind up in the Big Ten, then Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State and Baylor may not have a place to land. Those schools would also be left out of a conference that automatically qualifies for college football’s Bowl Championship Series, which creates multimillion-dollar payouts for the top six conferences.

The Big 12, which opened for competition in 1996, will conclude weeklong meetings today that Beebe hoped would bring about a sense of unity. Instead, there were indications that the schools weren’t on the same page.

“Each athletic director had a chance to convey their thoughts about the future of the conference,” Castiglione said.

Was there agreement?

“Everybody expressed their thoughts,” he repeated.

Missouri chancellor Brady Deaton said several times during an interview that the Tigers were “proud members of the Big 12. (But) we’re not shutting our ears to anything. I’m sure every school here has a responsibility to its own institution as a primary responsibility.

“Conference alignment is something we do for our athletic program. That’s what we’re working on right now.”

Last month, Big 12 athletic directors met with Pac-10 counterparts in Phoenix to discuss working together in negotiating television contracts and scheduling. The conferences account for 31 percent of the nation’s TV markets.

“I think there’s some potential value there,” Castiglione said. “We brainstormed some of the possibilities that may exist. Since then, both our commissioner and Larry Scott have had conversations. It leads one to believe there are some real viable opportunities for both leagues.”

But one Pac-10 president said the conference could be on the verge of big news involving its own television entity.

In a question-and-answer session with the University of California Alumni Club of New England, Cal-Berkeley chancellor Robert Birgeneau said Monday that he would be “surprised if something did not happen that revolutionized college athletics” at the Pac-10 meetings.

One downside to a 16-team conference that spans three time zones would be more time on the road, which is already an issue for many schools.

“I’ve heard a lot about the distances we’d have to have our student-athletes travel,” Texas A&M athletic director Bill Byrne said. “We had a really tough experience in April when we had to bring our teams from Seattle and Spokane and after ballgames, and we got into College Station at, I believe, 6:30 in the morning. Then we expect for our kids to go to class at 8 o’clock. That’s tough.”

Beebe and Powers are expected to meet with reporters today, and the conference is expected to announce future championship sites. Kansas City could get the Big 12 men’s and women’s basketball tournaments through 2014, and if that happens, 2013 will be a hoops festival — the city already is one of eight sites for NCAA Tournament first- and second-round games that season.

But will there even be a Big 12 to contest tournaments and championships that year?

Castiglione, previously the athletic director at Missouri, has been the league’s most vocal supporter throughout the meetings, often harking back to challenges of the Big 12’s fusion of the Big Eight and four members of the Southwest Conference, which disbanded after 1995. He’s said throughout the week that his preference is for the Big 12 to continue.

“There are people who really love this conference,” Castiglione said. “As far as I know, we have a football season coming up, a whole academic year coming up, sports planning to compete, new-student athletes coming into our conference.”

But on Thursday, there was a sense that the Big 12 wasn’t business as usual.

Read more: http://www.kansascit...r#ixzz0ptIJb9iX

[warthog]

I blame Dan Bebee and Lew Perkins for all of this. If Bebee would have addressed the needs of teams other than Texas and actually ran the league with all teams interests in mind, it might have been avoided. This also goes back to the heavy handed way Lew Perkins likes to get his way. The Tony Soprano of the conference. He had to twist arms and put out the bribes to get that Orange Bowl didn't he. I hope you enjoy your little conference with KState, Baylor, Iowa State, and Baylor. You might be able to when a football title in that one.

[Los Pollos Hermanos]

How do you really feel about KU, warty?

This would be all well and good if were only screwing KU but since it's screwing K-State too... I'm opposed to it.

[AssKickingBoots]

DallasChief, on 04 June 2010 - 03:14 PM, said:

How do you really feel about KU, warty?

This would be all well and good if were only screwing KU but since it's screwing K-State too... I'm opposed to it.

I've heard rumor that the Kansas Board of Regents (which governs both KU and K-State) may force the two to remain in a conference together. In other words, if one moves, so does the other. This has neither been confirmed or denied, so who knows, but it's fair to say the schools share similar fates.

Even knowing that, I still say screw KU.

If I was going to blame anyone besides Dan Bebee, it'd have to be Bill Powers of Texas. Is anyone else not a little cheesed off that those two would be fielding questions together. It's exactly that sort of crap, that attitude like the other 11 members don't matter, that make schools like Missouri, Nebraska, Texas A&M (potentially to the SEC), and Colorado want to bolt.

[The_Jonas]

warthog, on 04 June 2010 - 07:36 AM, said:

I blame Dan Bebee and Lew Perkins for all of this. If Bebee would have addressed the needs of teams other than Texas and actually ran the league with all teams interests in mind, it might have been avoided. This also goes back to the heavy handed way Lew Perkins likes to get his way. The Tony Soprano of the conference. He had to twist arms and put out the bribes to get that Orange Bowl didn't he. I hope you enjoy your little conference with KState, Baylor, Iowa State, and Baylor. You might be able to when a football title in that one.

Perkins?

This is like blaming Al Davis for the CBA issues in the NFL. Just cause you don't like him or his team doesn't mean that everything is his and their fault.

[AssKickingBoots]

The_Jonas, on 05 June 2010 - 09:08 AM, said:

Perkins?

This is like blaming Al Davis for the CBA issues in the NFL. Just cause you don't like him or his team doesn't mean that everything is his and their fault.

Agreed.

Like I said, it's more likely Bill Powers is the big evil bully making life so hard on everyone else in the Big XII.