Realingment Effect on Basketball?

With football getting virtually all the attention regarding conference realignment, ESPN.com college basketball writer Andy Katz examines how various possible reshufflings could affect the hoops scene.

Distance Analysis of Possible Texas/Oklahoma Schools' Move to Pac 12

Barring the Big 12 attracting a new marquee school (or three) to raise its number of teams from the current nine, the conference seems likely to implode. One of the leading scenarios, given Texas A&M's departure from the Big 12, is for a quartet of Big 12 South schools (Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State) to join the Pac 12, making it the Pac 16 (one other Big 12 South school, Baylor, would be left behind). Here is how such a plan would look geographically.

A little over a year ago, the Sports Economist blog examined the change in Nebraska's travel distances to conference venues associated with the Cornhuskers' switch from the Big 12 to the Big 10. That article has inspired me to attempt a similar analysis for proposed Pac 16. The same article also happened to mention a useful piece of information, namely that, "The average distance between Pac 10 schools, the most dispersed group of the BCS conferences (before realignment began), was 731 miles."

It is worth repeating. Even before conference realignment got underway in the summer of 2010, the Pac 10 was already the nation's most geographically spread out conference. Adding Colorado and Utah stretches the conference's footprint even more with, for example, the University of Washington in Seattle sitting roughly 1,000 miles (998 to be exact) from the University of Colorado in Boulder. Throw in Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State, and we're looking at some huge distances between member schools.

Texas Tech (in Lubbock) is the westernmost school of the four potential new additions to a Pac 16, so it provides a conservative estimate of the travel distances the new schools would face. For most, if not all, match-ups with the existing Pac 12 schools, Texas, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State presumably would have to cover even greater distances than Texas Tech. For these reasons (plus the fact I'm a faculty member at Texas Tech and thus have a personal curiosity), I decided to investigate what the Red Raiders' average travel distance was to its rivals in the (original) Big 12 and what it would become in the proposed Pac 16. The website Travel Math proved to be an invaluable aid in researching travel distances.

The following chart shows the distances from Texas Tech (Lubbock) to each specific opponent, in miles.

Opponent	Big 12 (Original)	Pac 16 (Hypothetical)
Texas A&M	382	---
Baylor	308	---
Texas	332	332
Oklahoma	277	277
Oklahoma State	324	324
Colorado	482	482
Nebraska	574	---
Kansas	524	---
Kansas State	486	---
Missouri	647	---
Iowa State	736	---
Utah	---	742
Arizona	---	535
Arizona State	---	580
UCLA	---	942
USC	---	942
Stanford	---	1,172
California	---	1,183
Oregon	---	1,348
Oregon State	---	1,372
Washington	---	1,440
Washington State	---	1,213
AVERAGE	461	859

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The main conclusion to be gleaned from this table is that Texas Tech's average distance to its conference rivals would nearly double, from 461 to 859, with a move to the Pac 12/16. Though the football team and perhaps some other revenue-generating sports would fly on chartered flights that avoid layovers, many teams would still presumably fly commercial. I consulted the travel schedules for Southwest Airlines, which I would say is the primary carrier from the Southwest to the West Coast (another leading airline out of Lubbock, American/American Eagle, would require first flying east to Dallas, out of the way, before getting on another plane to go west). If Southwest did not fly to necessary cities, I checked for alternative plans on Orbitz.

Here are some sample trips Texas Tech teams would have to make within a proposed Pac 16. For any given destination, there are usual a few daily departure times from the originating city; for each trip, I have listed the flight schedule that requires the least travel time (departing on a Thursday, assuming a game on Friday or Saturday).

Lubbock to Los Angeles (to play UCLA or USC): 4 hours, 30 minutes (1 plane-change in Albuquerque)

Lubbock to San Jose (to play Stanford): 4 hours, 30 minutes (1 plane-change in Las Vegas)

Lubbock to Eugene (to play Oregon): 7 hours, 55 minutes (on United, 2 stops)

Lubbock to Seattle (to play Washington): 7 hours, 35 minutes (2 stops)

Over at the Texas Tech athletics discussion site RaiderPower.com and on other boards, the idea of four four-team "pods" has been suggested (see the following table). To create a nine-game conference football schedule, for example, a school could play every opponent in its own pod, plus two schools (one at home, one away) each from the other three pods.

Washington	Stanford	Arizona	Texas
Wash. St.	California	Ariz. St.	Texas Tech
Oregon	UCLA	Colorado	Oklahoma
Ore. St.	USC	Utah	Okla. St.

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For the Texas/Oklahoma schools, such a plan would require one trip to a California school and one to a Pacific Northwest school, annually. That wouldn't be so bad, some might argue. Indeed, two long trips might not be so bad for any single team in a particular sport. But taking all the sports in the aggregate (football, baseball, softball, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's tennis, women's volleyball, women's soccer, and others), the travel bills would quickly add up.

For some sports, perhaps a barnstorming strategy could be used. For example, Texas Tech's women's soccer squad could take a nine-day journey to the Northwest to play Washington, Washington State, Oregon, and Oregon State on a Friday-Sunday-Friday-Sunday schedule. Doing so would require only one long round-trip by air, with the ability to drive from campus to campus. Even if such a long trip were never scheduled, the amount of classroom time missed would almost certainly go up in a Pac 16 compared to a more geographically compact conference.

Just as the teams would have to travel great distances, so too would fans. Large contingents of visiting fans from Texas, Texas A&M, and Oklahoma help Texas Tech fill its football stadium. As one of my faculty colleagues asked (perhaps rhetorically), would comparably large traveling parties from WSU or Oregon State make the trip to Lubbock?

Should the Big 12 implode, most fans of Texas Tech (and probably also Oklahoma State) would likely consider it a "must" that their school find a home in a conference at least as prestigious as the Big 12, to avoid a considerable downgrade in the school's athletic reputation. Such an outlook is understandable for a die-hard supporter of a school's sports teams. Texas, it has been hinted, could try to make a go of it as an independent, at least in football, whereas Oklahoma likely could land in a major conference without much trouble (perhaps the Big 10, where it would be re-paired with its old rival Nebraska, or the SEC, if not the Pac 12).

Conference USA, which currently includes four Texas schools (Houston, Rice, SMU, and Texas-El Paso), plus nearby Tulane (in New Orleans) and Tulsa, would allow Texas Tech (along with current Big 12 mate Baylor) to stay in a geographically compact league, without the seemingly exorbitant cost in travel time and money that a Pac 16 move would entail. The scholastically elite Rice and Tulane would also allow C-USA members to point to positive academic role models (similar to Stanford and Cal-Berkeley in the Pac 12).

Although my discussion has been undertaken through the lens of Texas Tech, the factors addressed -- travel time and expenses, geographic compactness, athletic prestige, and academics -- must be considered by any schools seeking to extend (via their league offices) or accept an invitation to a new and distant conference.

Big 12: And Then There Were 9

Texas A&M has officially pulled the trigger on its exit from the Big 12 and move to the SEC. Technically, A&M is only reporting its intention to "submit an application to join another athletic conference." As shown in the above diagram made from my old Big 12 t-shirt, which I bought upon my arrival to the Texas Tech faculty in 1997, Texas A&M is the third school to leave the conference.

The story is far from over, as each conference presumably needs to get back to an even number of members, 10 or 12 for the Big 12, and 14 or 16 for the SEC.

ESPN.com's David Ubben evaluates possible contenders to join the Big 12. Brigham Young University is the leading school mentioned as a potential new member. BYU had previously announced its plans to leave the Mountain West Conference to go independent in football and join the West Coast Conference in other sports. Conceivably, BYU could align with the Big 12 for football only. Some schools from the old Southwest Conference (e.g., Houston, Southern Methodist) that got left behind when Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and Baylor merged with the old Big 8 to form the Big 12, would probably be interested in joining this time around.

Of course, the Big 12 could in reality be a house of cards, with Texas perhaps entertaining ideas of becoming an independent in football. The school already has its own Longhorn Network with ESPN. Also, Missouri and/or Oklahoma (with Oklahoma State) could follow Texas A&M to the SEC. Should the Big 12 implode, schools such as Texas Tech and the Oklahoma schools (if they aren't in the SEC) could seek membership in an expanded Pac 12.

Other schools rumored to be targets of the SEC include Florida State, Georgia Tech, Clemson, and Louisville.

A&M "Intends" to Move to SEC

This ESPN.com article states that Texas A&M "intends" to leave for the SEC. Conferences generally like to have an even number of teams, to be able to provide full dockets of league play each weekend without one of the teams having a bye or playing a nonconference opponent (although the Big 10 went many years with 11 schools after adding Penn State).

Accordingly, rumors are abuzz regarding who else might shift to the SEC, should the A&M move come to fruition. Clemson (in South Carolina) and Florida State, each from the ACC, have been mentioned. The above-linked ESPN.com article gives more prominence than I've seen elsewhere to the possibility of A&M's Big 12 mate Missouri jumping to the SEC. As if the Aggies' (potential) departure wouldn't be devastating enough to the Big 12, a Missouri exit would have the damaging effect of ending the intense Missouri-Kansas basketball rivalry (at least within the context of the same league).

Being at Texas Tech, I've tended to look at the latest round of proposed changes through a Big 12 lens. From a different perspective, a blogger known as "Mr. SEC" reviews what he considers five myths of that conference expanding.

A&M to SEC Momentum Builds

To paraphrase Yogi Berra, Texas A&M to the Southeastern Conference (SEC) is not official until it's official. Still, as seen in this screenshot from a site that covers A&M sports, the momentum certainly is building.

Birmingham News columnist Jon Solomon writes that the move "feels inevitable." Here are what I feel are key excerpts from Solomon's piece:

Texas A&M would be very attractive to the SEC on several fronts. Culturally, the school fits. The SEC would get into the Dallas and Houston television markets, giving the conference a lot of leverage to renegotiate with its media deal with ESPN. Just as importantly, add a school in Texas and the SEC would have a foothold to recruit in the massive football-crazy state.

Texas A&M has clearly grown weary of Texas and the Longhorn Network, which hasn't even premiered yet. Texas rules the Big 12. That's why the conference won't survive long-term. There's too much in-fighting for this to last.

The A&M story is appearing increasingly in national sports outlets. And if Lubbock, Texas, the home of Texas Tech University and the place where I live, is representative of other Big 12 towns, Aggie talk is ubiquitous in select local markets. Today's two-hour radio show Tech Talk was devoted entirely to the possible A&M move and its implications for Texas Tech and more of the same is planned for the coming days. I heard someone use the term "secede" for what A&M would be doing, which may have been a play on words (as in SEC-ede).

It is being reported that Texas A&M's Board of Regents will meet on August 22 to deliberate on the matter.

An Aggie exit would leave the Big 12 with nine teams (given the previous departures of Nebraska to the Big 10 and Colorado to the Pac 10, now Pac 12). My own guess, for whatever it's worth, is that if A&M were to leave the Big 12, the University of Texas would become an independent in football (a la BYU) and the Big 12 would be history. The Longhorns would presumably need to "hook" up with some other league for sports other than football.

Texas A&M: The Trigger to More Realignment?

Via Double-T Nation, I came across an article from TexAgs.com entitled "Will A&M Trigger the Next Realignment Explosion?" The article suggests that Texas A&M continues to keep open the option of leaving the Big 12 for the SEC (which would almost certainly be part of an even larger SEC expansion). The reason? Indications that the Aggies' archrival, the University of Texas, is "essentially see[ing] if going at it alone will be a viable future option," according to the article. In other words, some inside (and presumably also outside) of Aggieland think that UT, armed with its new Longhorn Network television venture, may try to become an Independent in athletics. BYU, of course, has already set an example of bolting from a conference (the Mountain West) to go Independent, at least partially.

Pitino Chimes in on Organizing the Big East

Louisville men's basketball coach Rick Pitino has some ideas on splitting the Big East conference into divisions, as the league prepares to take on its 17th team (and perhaps more).