LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Kansas basketball coach Bill Self was so disgusted by the last round of conference realignment — when Missouri and Texas A&M bolted the Big 12 for the SEC — that he vowed never to play the Tigers again.
It didn’t matter that the Border War had been one of the best rivalries in college sports.
Self’s reason was simple: The departures, along with Nebraska’s move to the Big Ten and Colorado’s to the Pac-12, had left the Big 12 on precarious footing. Why continue with a treasured series with the league’s very existence on shaky ground?
The most recent round of conference realignment didn’t strike in Self nearly the same nerves. Perhaps because the Big 12 may have come out ahead — at least, when it comes to basketball.
Sure, the league will lose marquee names when Texas and Oklahoma leave for the SEC, but the football prowess of those two schools has historically outpaced their basketball pedigree.
Despite stars such as Kevin Durant and Buddy Hield over the years, the Longhorns haven’t won a Big 12 title outright since 1999 (though they shared the title with Kansas in 2006 and 2008), and the Sooners haven’t won it since 2005. In fact, the two schools have only appeared in two national title games and never brought home a championship.
To replace them, the Big 12 is adding Houston, Cincinnati and Central Florida from the American Athletic Conference and BYU from the West Coast. The Bearcats have been to six Final Fours and delivered two national titles, Houston’s been to two title games and just went to the Final Four last season, and the Cougars are now a perennial NCAA tourney team.
“I think there was more concern in 2011, maybe because it was new, maybe because I was more involved,” said Self, who finally relented and allowed the Jayhawks to schedule a game against Missouri this season. “This time I wasn’t. I kind of felt like this time somehow it’d work out, it’d be figured out.”
It’s unclear exactly when the realignment will shake out. BYU has indicated it wants to begin play in the Big 12 in the fall of 2023 with the other three schools joining the following year, and Texas and Oklahoma are tied to their old league until 2025 for what amounts to an awkward lame-duck period that nobody is quite happy with.
For awhile, the Big 12 might balloon from 10 teams to 14 before settling back at … well, the Big 12. Even Commissioner Bob Bowlsby feels good about where the league stands, and that’s a pleasant change.
“Nobody has a better basketball tradition than Cincinnati. BYU has traditionally played in the Top 25, doing it coming out of a relatively mid-major league,” Bowlsby said. “I think in Houston’s case, their strength is self-evident. They were in the Final Four last year. UCF has had good teams as well, coached by my dear friend Johnny Dawkins.
“I think you don’t ever replace truly an Oklahoma and a Texas,” Bowlsby added, “but in the sport of basketball, I don’t think there’s any question that we don’t fall off much and we may gain.”
College basketball fans may ultimately gain, too.
Those in the SEC will enjoy the renewal of some old Southwest Conference rivalries — Texas will face Arkansas and Texas A&M again — and Oklahoma will face old Big Eight foe Missouri again. The league also will become the new home of the Red River Rivalry, which means a whole lot more in football but still has plenty of pizzazz on the hardwood.
The biggest loser might be Oklahoma State, which could lose its annual Bedlam rivalry with the Sooners. But there are major benefits for other schools in the Big 12: West Virginia finally gets a natural and geographic rival in Cincinnati, Texas schools get another in-state rival in Houston while Central Florida allows the league to expand its footprint into new television markets.
