2020-21 College Basketball thread

The Pac-12 said “for now” in its statement about expansion. This will all shake out over years, not months.

That Skipper interview, if it’s the one I’m thinking of that I listened to, was in July, before Oklahoma and Texas officially joined the SEC and well before we ever heard the word “Alliance.” It was great information, but the Alliance has slowed down the conference realignment chatter for now, and maybe with the right adds to 12 or 16, the Big 12 keeps its autonomy and P5 status, albeit as the weakest link.

 

If you want to crap on a Big East program, you might look to DePaul or somewhere else. Even post-Brad Stevens, Butler's been a regular tournament invitee. If you compare Indiana, Notre Dame, Purdue and Butler's post season records over the last 20 years, the Bulldogs come out quite favorable.

 

As a college basketball junkie, I’m well aware of Butler’s resume, and I didn’t mean to come off as dogging them. When I typed that, I was thinking of the long view of the Big 12 programs — Wilt, Phog Allen, Henry Iba, Big Country, Jerry West, etc — and not just the past 20 years. Nothing but respect for Butler, though I still hate the fact they didn’t beat Duke. Any team I picked probably would’ve drawn scorn.

Point is, if we start omitting schools from the main tournament based on affiliation, it loses something. If there’s a champion from a tournament where a school like KU or Gonzaga didn’t have access to it, what’s the point? Did the tournament even happen?

 

That would make the CART/IRL split look downright inspired. The two competing tournaments would probably draw a combined rating about a third lower than what March Madness gets now. Conference tournaments for the breakaway leagues would be completely dead, and don’t forget that’s money that all goes to the league office. I don’t even want to think of how badly interest in the regular season would be further damaged.

All in all it seems like a horrible idea, which means it probably gets announced at this fall’s Maui Invitational.

 

I think if the tournament splits, it'll lose most if not all of its appeal.

 

Emoni Bates transferred from a public high school to Ypsi Prep. The school was started last year by his family. Educational services are provided by an on-line high school. Do the shoe companies fund these basketball factories. How do they make it financially?

 

Per the NCAA Basketball Reddit, today marks 2,000 days since Indiana has beaten Purdue.

 

What a possession. This is the way.

 

We've got to have a couple of people who covered Memphis or were close to the program.

Penny's having mad success in recruiting. I'm not intending to troll, but what's the consensus on the program and the risk of recruiting violations? I know that NCAA enforcement is in flux, but I have no idea how that looks in this era. Anyone have thoughts?

 

They’re already under investigation for Wiseman.
IIRC: The new site on3.com apparently reported that Memphis worked with FedEx to get the newest recruits an NLI deal. Cooperation during recruitment re such things is supposed to be against the rules. Then, on3.com pulled that reference from the story. Can’t find the link with the original story.
But to answer the question, I suspect they’re skirting whatever rules still exist. That’s what they do.

 

I think the split would certainly diminish interest in college basketball. But let's do back of the envelope computations. The Power Four conferences receive about three million dollars per school from the tournament. CBS pays about 800 million dollars a year for the tournament. Let's say Fox went to the Power Four conferences plus the Big East and offered six million dollars a school or about 400 million dollars total for a torunament.

Then the schools would have a question to ask themselves. Do they grab the guaranteed cash and move to a new tournament or do they stay in the existing tournament out of macro concerns for the sport. There is a lot of evidence that the Power Four are very focused on grabbing as much cash up front as possible (because God knows Jimbo Fisher needs a larger salary) and very little evidence that they think about the sport in general.