Big Ten Expansion Will Impact Hoops Too

Mike DeCourcy - SportingNews.com

Basketball will not be first on the list of priorities when the Big Ten eventually moves to expand. It will rank somewhere above ice hockey and below which caterer should provide the sodas and cookies for the celebratory news conference.

This is a football deal. We all get that. Some of us don't understand why everyone goes all goofy about these single-game conference playoffs and avoids a 15-game national playoff as if it were made of cottage cheese, but enough leagues have made enough transformational moves for that single Saturday spectacle to send a powerful message.

There will be repercussions for the basketball league, however. Almost certainly, expansion will be good for Big Ten basketball. If the right team were to be invited, it could be great for basketball.

And that right team is: Texas.

Yes, that's correct: Texas. No one seems to recognize the genius of this suggestion, which may be evidence of its genius. Everyone else seems to be thinking small and boring, but as I suggested not long after the Big Ten Network was conceived, Texas is the one program that could dramatically expand the money-making power of the league's cable operation. It also would enhance the competitive product of the league's two highest-profile sports.

Texas already is generating more money in the college football business than anyone else, and that's in a league that does not have the Big Ten's television appeal. Someone asked why the Longhorns would need to make more money, but I didn't see Mack Brown turn down that $2 million raise his athletic department offered. People always take more money if they can get it.

Folks who know the state and the university much better than I insist Texas never would get the political clearance to ditch the other big-state schools. Maybe so. There are such possibilities, though, it has to be worth a shot for the Horns and the Big Ten.

Just about any other addition would be transacted merely for arithmetic purposes: 11 + 1 = 12. The Big Ten ought to be able to do better.

Notre Dame, too, would help the league's television brand, but it'd be hard for the Big Ten to go begging again after getting rejected 10 years ago. Also, Notre Dame football is not in any kind of shape to sell itself as an upgrade for the Big Ten, and the basketball team looks like most of the league's mid-pack programs.

Syracuse would make the Big Ten a much better basketball league. The Orange are a Final Four contender again and made three previous trips under Jim Boeheim, including the 2003 championship season. But the size of SU's market would do little to expand the Big Ten's footprint.

Rutgers gets pitched because it supposedly offers the opportunity for the Big Ten to enter the New York market. Honestly, Rutgers "owns" New York in the same way I "own" Cincinnati -- which is to say, each of us lives in the vicinity, and that's it.

The Big Ten Network already is in Time Warner's systems in NYC, backing my contention that Penn State has probably as many supporters there as Rutgers.

If Rutgers were invited, accepting also would destroy momentum Rutgers basketball has in rebuilding. Jersey kids do not grow up dreaming of playing road games in Iowa City. They want to play in the Garden.

Pitt? Penn State already owns a huge chunk of the Pittsburgh market. It's not such an enormous audience that there'd be an essential need to get more of it.

If the league is completely set on adding a mere number, though, there would be some residual benefit for its basketball teams. Having a 12th team would allow the Big Ten to bring some order to what has been the most confounding schedule of all the major conferences.

The Big Ten does not use a weighted schedule like the Big East. In the Big East, they try to determine which teams will be the best and endeavor to get them matched as much as possible for TV purposes.

The Big Ten treats everyone equally. That can impact the course of the league race when one contender winds up with fewer games against the league's elite. It's not as big a deal now that the league plays 18 games as it was when 16 was the standard, but it still can matter.

For instance, this season Purdue has no road game at Michigan, no home game against Northwestern. Michigan State doesn't get Ohio State on the road or Indiana at home. That's a slight edge for Purdue, and could be decisive if the championship comes down to a single game.

In a 12-team league, such as the Big 12 and SEC, it's easy to split the league into divisions and play 16 league games: twice each against five divisional opponents and once each against those on the opposite side.

How those divisions would be set would be anyone's guess, and debating the subject is pointless until the identity of team No. 12 is established.

But wouldn't Texas look sweet in the Big Ten South?

Mike DeCourcy is a writer for Sporting News. E-mail him at decourcy@sportingnews.com.

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