Funny Stuff New Conference re-alignment thread - Page 15

The old one has AIDS.

Anyways, Chip Brown from Orangebloods.com reports OU may apply to the Pac-12 by the end of the month.

Oklahoma will apply for membership to the Pac-12 before the end of the month, and Oklahoma State is expected to follow suit, a source close to OU's administration told Orangebloods.com.

Even though Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said Friday the Pac-12 was not interested in expansion at this time, OU's board of regents is fed up with the instability in the Big 12, the source said.

The OU board of regents will meet within two weeks to formalize plans to apply for membership to the Pac-12, the source said.

Messages left Sunday night with OU athletic director Joe Castiglione and Oklahoma State athletic director Mike Holder were not immediately returned.

If OU follows through with what appears to be a unanimous sentiment on the seven-member Oklahoma board of regents to leave the Big 12, realignment in college athletics could be heating back up. OU's application would be matched by an application from Oklahoma State, the source said, even though OSU president Burns Hargis and mega-booster Boone Pickens both voiced their support for the Big 12 last Thursday.

There is differing sentiment about if the Pac-12 presidents and chancellors are ready to expand again after bringing in Colorado and Utah last year and landing $3 billion TV contracts from Fox and ESPN. Colorado president Bruce Benson told reporters last week CU would be opposed to any expansion that might bring about east and west divisions in the Pac-12.

Currently, there are north and south divisions in the Pac-12. If OU and OSU were to join, Larry Scott would have to get creative.

Scott's orginal plan last summer was to bring in Colorado, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State and put them in an eastern division with Arizona and Arizona State. The old Pac-8 schools (USC, UCLA, Cal, Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington and Washington State) were to be in the west division.

Colorado made the move in June 2010, but when Texas A&M was not on board to go west, the Big 12 came back together with the help of its television partners (ABC/ESPN and Fox).

If Oklahoma and Oklahoma State were accepted into the Pac-12, there would undoubtedly be a hope by Larry Scott that Texas would join the league. But Texas sources have indicated UT is determined to hang onto the Longhorn Network, which would not be permissible in the Pac-12 in its current form.

Texas sources continue to indicate to Orangebloods.com that if the Big 12 falls apart, the Longhorns would consider "all options."

Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe held an emergency conference call 10 days ago with league presidents excluding Oklahoma, Texas and Texas A&M and asked the other league presidents to "work on Texas" because Beebe didn't think the Pac-12 would take Oklahoma without Texas.

Now, it appears OU is willing to take its chances with the Pac-12 with or without Texas.

There seemed to be a temporary pause in any possible shifting of the college athletics' landscape when Baylor led a charge to tie up Texas A&M's move to the Southeastern Conference in legal red tape. BU refused to waive its right to sue the SEC over A&M's departure from the Big 12, and the SEC said it would not admit Texas A&M until it had been cleared of any potential lawsuits.

Baylor, Kansas and Iowa State have indicated they will not waive their right to sue the SEC.

It's unclear if an application by OU to the Pac-12 would draw the same threats of litigation against the Pac-12 from those Big 12 schools.

Stay tuned.
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http://espn.go.com/mens-college-bask...range-coup-acc

Originally Posted by :
"It's actually pretty exciting," Krzyzewski said. "I think it's great for our conference football-wise, even better basketball-wise. Wherever this is going to end up, four big-time conferences or five, whatever it is, you want to be perceived as No. 1 in football and basketball.

"The last few years the ACC has lost some of that but over the last 25 years if you had to pick the best conference in basketball it is the ACC. Lately, it hasn't been that. It's been a really good conference. But to me this is in some ways a coup for basketball."

Florida State president Eric Barron confirmed to The Associated Press on Saturday before the Seminoles played No. 1 Oklahoma that both schools have applied to join the ACC.

But Krzyzewski doesn't want the ACC to stop at 14. He said he'd like to see 16 teams, taking two more schools that have comparable rich basketball traditions and are in the Eastern time zone.

"I'm proud of the leadership of our conference to be ahead of things," Krzyzewski said. "We're in a period of change. Whether everyone agrees with it or doesn't agree with it -- change is happening. It's not a revolution, it's evolution. These things are happening.

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"It's about the time zone," Krzyzewski said. "If we're going to do this at 14, I would love to keep all the members we now have. I'm not sure that will happen. But we're being proactive and that's good. We're giving the 12 we have the knowledge that we've been proactive and the leader in this. It will become tougher to leave. Our conference is getting stronger. It's easy to leave a conference when it's weaker."

Krzyzewski said he would like to see the ACC go to 16 for an easy eight-team divisional split in basketball and football with champions of two divisions.

"We can keep the round robin in each division and keep some tradition," Krzyzewski said. "I wouldn't want to see one line of 14 or 16 teams. One of the weaknesses of the current Big East is that you never know who plays one another. The SEC hasn't been able to define their two divisions in basketball as well as they have in football."

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