Sportsfrog.com

By now you’ve heard the news of the Big X(II)’s salvation mostly at the hands of the Texas Longhorns, who turned down an offer from the PAC-10 to join the conference. As was widely reported, if Texas left, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State and Oklahoma would have gone with them and Texas A&M would have most likely jumped ship to the SEC.

Commissioner Dan Beebe said during the Big 12 meetings in Kansas City two weeks ago that his conference would be able to approach paying league members as much as $17 million annually — nearly twice as much as some members now receive — with a new television deal with Fox Sports Net.

Texas could earn up to $25 million thanks to revenues from the UT Sports Network which will become a reality with the new Big X(II). The other 11 teams will have the Big X(II) Network to themselves, but it’s unclear at this point whether the UT Network and the Big X(II) Network will be available to subscribers as a package deal. On the surface, it seems that the UTSN couldn’t survive on its own outside of Texas, but all of that still has to be worked out.

What’s clear right now is that the Big X(II) exists. And while it’s natural for those in the Midwest — and certainly those here in KU and KSU territory — to revel in the conference’s continued existence, the realignment elephant hasn’t left the room. It’s just now calmly sitting in the corner instead of smashing the coffee table.

The UTSN was the alleged dealbreaker — and there’s been many alleged deals and dealbreakers in this saga — of Texas’ proposed inclusion into the PAC-10. If Texas became a member of the PAC-10, they couldn’t have their own sports network. But to believe that the existence of the UTSN is a barrier to future realignment is, quite frankly, a fairytale.

It’s not going to happen anytime soon, but there’s the very real possibility that within five years we go through a similar circumstance. By then the Big 10 could be comfortable with 12 or 14 teams and be looking to expand to 16. In response, the PAC-10 and SEC would need to counter by adding more teams of their own. Or maybe the PAC-10 starts the realignment merry-go round again. It’s anybody’s guess, and at this point, Larry Scott and Jim Delany may not even know. (OK, of course they know. They’ve played the Big X(II) and the rest of the NCAA for fools and this is just the appetizer to the main course.)

Once one of those conferences takes the first step towards expansion, Texas will be at the top of the list. This time, the Longhorns will have their own television network to bring with them to immediately vault them to the top of the revenue list of their new conference.

DeLoss Dodds and the rest of the Texas administration aren’t stupid like Beebe. They knew that they were the Boardwalk in Delany and Scott’s game of Monopoly and now they’re just leasing a house on the square. And as we all know, building on property makes that property much more valuable in the future.

So with Nebraska tipping over, the first domino in this round of conference implosions and explosions has fallen. They can deny it all they want in Lincoln, but this is apparently going down. And this time, it will apparently set off a succession of moves that will make the college landscape borderline unrecognizable. A few of my random and not-so-random thoughts:

1. There is practically NO ONE who wanted this. A whole bunch of college fans liked the traditional rivalries. A whole bunch of college football fans wanted there to be some sort of playoff at the end of the season.

So what did the motherfuckers who run college sports give us? Looming mega-conferences that hump traditional rivalries in the eye and still no playoff. But we do get godawful 16-team conferences, so, hey, that’s shitty.

2. The rumors persist that part of the Big 10’s gluttony will include taking in Maryland to the east. And I get why Maryland would do that, given the additional revenue, but if this one is true, it blows mule. Goodbye to all the traditional ACC rivalries for the Terps, and hello to those awesome Maryland/Nebraska and Maryland/Northwestern tilts. Because that is WAY more exciting than Maryland/Duke and Maryland/Carolina in basketball. As for football, well, the Big 10 might help Maryland sell a few extra tickets. Course, no one cares all that much about Maryland football. And that includes Ralph Friedgen at this point.

3. The only part of any of this that makes me giggly is that Kansas may be left out of one of the looming three super-conferences. Their fans were super-snooty a few years ago when they got by Memphis for the college basketball title. And given that they operate in the gray areas of NCAA rules themselves from time to time, I thought the airs they put on rather unseemly. Now, if this goes down, they will be reduced to hoping they can have a college basketball program that can remain relevant in a conference that makes it hard to do so. Like Memphis in C-USA, say. So, yeah, that would be kinda funny to me.

4. Speaking of Memphis, I cannot underscore enough how likely it is that AD R.C. Johnson will fuck this up again for that program, and leave Memphis on the extra-outside looking in, as opposed to just on the outside looking in.

At any rate, good luck ruining college sports as we know it to all the schools busy doing so. I guess I wish you all well. It was pretty okay as it was, all it really needed was a simple college football playoff. But I guess that was too hard, and it was much easier to fuck everything else up instead.

Job well done. I guess.

At this point, when World Wide Wes talks, people listen. Previously, that was the case in college basketball, where he has spent about a decade funneling the best players to John Calipari at Memphis and now Kentucky. But if World Wide Wes can funnel Lebron James somewhere? In a package with Calipari? Well, king maker indeed.

According to the Chicago Tribune, supposedly WW Wes is indeed peddling a Lebron James/John Calipari package to teams. Because Wes is tight with James. And, of course, with Calipari. And Calipari is friends, apparently, with James. And so on. And so forth. Apparently.

And, if so, I am guessing there is almost no coach who is safe outside of Phil Jackson. Unless it is John Calipari. Who remains, as ever, at least two full steps ahead of the curve.

And if you are a Kentucky fan? It is a nauseating ride. Close your eyes and hope it ends soon.

Hard to add anything to what joins the short list of most memorable NCAA finals I have seen, sitting somewhere on the list with Houston/NC State, Georgetown/Villanova, Seton Hall/Michigan, and Kansas/Memphis. Both teams deserved to win, and in the end, Duke did.

Joe Posnanski with as good a job capturing the aftermath as you are going to find this morning courtesy of si.com. Enjoy.

…Mike Krzyzewski out of Durham and to the Nets?

If the initial reaction is there-is-not-enough-money-in-the-world, that may be put to the test. NorthJersey.com is reporting that new Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov is ready to offer the Duke coach somewhere between 12 and 15 million a year to come north.

That’s enough that it is worth a second glance from Krzyzweski, I would guess, if the report has elements of truth to it.

Easiest call ever. If you don’t have a vested interest in this one as a Duke fan already, and you root for Duke, you are just doing it to be contrarian.

Of course Butler is legit, anyone paying attention knew that from the outset of the season. That does not take away from the joy at seeing a school like Butler, from a league like the Horizon, get to the final game. It wasn’t pretty, but it was a good game. Butler 52. Michigan State 50. Purists who love defense in ecstasy.

…is Bill Self a candidate to be fired Monday?

While his predecessor Roy Williams was prone to the upset in the NCAA tournament as well (which is also a product of being really good in the regular season. You can’t be upset if you aren’t the better team), Self is now the coach of record for arguably the three worst losses in Kansas history. (Bucknell and Bradley being the others)

If Chalmers’ shot doesn’t go in, Kansas AD Lew Perkins (who’s an interesting character) may be succumbing to booster pressure as we speak, realizing that the Kansas streak of years without a national title had reached 22 and making a trip to the other locker room after today’s game and asking UNI coach Ben Jacobson if he was interested in coaching the Jayhawks.

Taking away the two games in 2008’s Final Four, in the seven years Self has been at Kansas, the Jayhawks have only played four games against teams seeded higher than 10th in the NCAA tournament, a number that’s staggering to me. Self’s record in those four games? 1-3. (In 2008, Kansas beat #10 Davidson in the regional finals, #12 Villanova in the Sweet 16 and #8 UNLV in the second round)

Bill Self is a very good basketball coach and he’s proven that at Tulsa, Illinois and Kansas. Hell, you don’t win six straight Big XII regular season championships on university name recognition alone. But sixth straight conference title aside, there was something about this team that Self couldn’t handle. Was it the overabundance of selfish talent? Ridiculous on the surface, but given the immaturity of some players (Tyshawn Taylor, the Morris twins, the fight with the football team) and the differing agenda of Xavier Henry, it may be a plausible theory.

I can’t remember seeing this team put together a complete game. Most of the time, they’d struggle for 25 minutes, play well for five or seven, and then the rest of the time they’d look like world beaters, which usually was enough to get by whoever the opponent was on any given day. But the Jayhawks waited to flip that switch until there were three minutes left, and while that may have been plenty of time to beat a Colorado or Nebraska, it wasn’t enough to beat Northern Iowa.

Is the inconsistency completely Self’s fault? I’ve got no clue. I thought he did a great job of handling the fight, integrating Henry into the offense during the nonconference schedule and babysitting the Morris twins and Tyshawn Taylor. But Self is responsible for bringing these players to Kansas.

This loss may shorten that National Championship grace period, and while Self’s in no danger of losing his job because of that title, one has to wonder if the seat will get a little toasty with another early round upset, no matter the regular season success.

(h/t to SuperJew in the Swamp who first brought this up)

…never would have guessed that not only would Georgetown lose in round 1, they would lose convincingly enough to have the Baltimore CBS station cut away to the Northern Iowa/UNLV game with 14 minutes left in the second half. Baltimore is damn near home market for the Hoyas…

I guess if you are going to soil the bed, might as well go all the way. Props to Georgetown for that, I guess. As for Ohio U, the 9th seed in the MAC tournament coming off a 7-9 conference season, that was a solid well coached team that blitzed Georgetown. Very impressive.

Why is Duke hated? Because of shit like that. For them to get that draw, with possibly the weakest four in the history of the tournament in Purdue, and as weak a two as Villanova is, is beyond ludicrous. An absolute joke. Was Kansas the #1 overall? Because, if so, they got boned, as did #2 overall Kentucky.

Laughable.