It seems like most of the talk in the Big 12/Pac-10 mess from the last two weeks surrounds the football programs. While football rules the day financially, it is not the only sports program that matters in the Big 12. Basketball in the Big 12 just got a whole lot more interesting.
“Not to take anything away from Colorado or Nebraska, but our basketball league just got even better,” said Texas A&M coach Mark Turgeon.
In the last three seasons, Colorado went 36-58 and starts the 2010 season with a new head coach. Nebraska has not won a conference championship in men’s basketball since 1950. They are one of the only major NCAA programs never to win a single game in the NCAA tournament.
“There’s a brand for the Big 12,” Missouri Coach Mike Anderson said to the Columbia Tribune, “and that brand will continue to get even better for what took place here in the last couple weeks.”
The new schedule is great for fans as well. All teams will play 18 league games plus their postseason tournament. This means every team will play a home-and-away series against every other team in the conference. Gone are the days of Kansas playing Oklahoma only one time in Lawrence. Now both teams get an opportunity to play each other on their home courts.
“I’ve always talked about it,” Texas head coach Rick Barnes said of playing Kansas twice in a season. “I might live to regret it.”
Unlike football coaches like Bob Stoops, who openly supported a move to the Pac-10, the basketball coaches stood together against the move. When contacted about his opinion, Oklahoma head coach Jeff Capel originally said the move was intriguing. However, when CBSSports asked him if he stood by his fellow coaches wanting to remain in the Big 12 he answered “Yes.”
Women’s coach Sherri Coale was more vocal.
"We have built, brick by brick, the premier women's basketball conference in the country. It just goes away," she said to the Tulsa World. "We've had the No. 1 RPI three years in a row. We've led the country in attendance for a decade. And it all just goes away.
"Think about the championships we've been fortunate enough to host in Oklahoma," she continued. "We have hosted the Big 12 basketball tournament. We have had Big 12 baseball in Bricktown. Do you think those things are going to continue to happen if we become the Pac-16? You think Oklahoma is going to be considered for events like that?
In the men’s division, the remaining ten Big 12 schools have been to the Final Four 33 times and have won five National Championships. The women have won three National Championships and Oklahoma has been to the Final Four three times since 2000, making it to the championship game in 2002.
In the past decade, Big 12 teams made a national-best 16 appearances in the Elite Eight. Seven league schools made the NCAA Tournament last season. In 2009, the Big 12 was ranked as the top conference in the RPI and would have been the strongest RPI league since 2004 if Colorado and Nebraska’s records were removed.
"We have all worked extremely hard to make this the No. 1 RPI conference in the country," Baylor's Scott Drew told CBSSports.com. "We all appreciate the rivalries and traditions, and I don't think any of us want to see that go to the wayside."
While football fans will argue the quality of the new Big 12 until they are blue in the face, basketball fans might have a different outlook on the situation.
“Having a lot of teams doesn’t necessarily make you a great league,” Martin told rivals.com. “In basketball right now, we’ve got 10 teams, and eight of them can legitimately be NCAA tournament teams next year. That’s big time. No league in the country can rival that.”
Make sure you check out articles by the Oklahoma Sooners Football Examiner Bryan Waters
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