We’re on the Island of Misfit Toys
Here we don’t want to stay…
The answer to the question asked in a blog post yesterday: Yes. The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about, and the words “Iowa State” don’t appear in here at all:
So when you hear Big East and wonder why schools such as Missouri, Kansas and Kansas State are being mentioned, think Midwest TV markets. Maps are just a piece of paper with lines. …
The Big East has studied the creation of four five-team divisions in basketball and two divisions — East and West — in football, The Post has learned. …
Football would split along geographical lines with Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Cincinnati, Louisville and TCU in the West Division, and UConn, Rutgers, Syracuse, Pitt, South Florida and West Virginia in the East.
Quite possibly, the only way this doesn’t happen is if the SEC goes after Missouri as its 14th team. But maybe not even then.
Those schools reportedly talked to the Big East last year when the Big 12 appeared on the verge of splitting up. Those three schools were then set to join with Iowa State. But with TCU joining the Big East next season, the conference reportedly now isn’t interested in either the Cyclones or Baylor.
The telling Mack Brown quote: “Our school will be OK regardless of what happens, and that’s not the case for everybody.”
If massive realignment occurs with the Oklahoma schools, Texas and TTU joining the Pac-12 … and with A&M and Missouri headed to the SEC … then Kansas probably goes to the Big East, likely in tandem with Kansas State.
The Big 12 schools in the biggest trouble would be Baylor and Iowa State. “They might have to go backwards,” said a source — meaning Conference USA or the Mountain West.
The Mountain West could make an attempt to lure some or all of the remaining schools — programs like Baylor, Iowa State and Kansas State. Or those schools, perhaps with Missouri and Kansas, could attempt to rebuild the Big 12 by poaching teams from the Mountain West.
The Kansas City Star’s Blair Kerkhoff has a column about the potential effects on MU, KU, and K-State. Missouri and Kansas have a hatred that was born out of the buildup to the Civil War – will that dissolve?
The only thing that went even close to right for Iowa State the past three weeks is that we didn’t lose to UNI. Because — although this has been the case for approximately ever — Iowa fans despise playing us (Omaha World-Herald):
The Big Ten’s imminent move to nine conference games could endanger the series; several Iowa media types have told me that Iowa fans would like nothing better than to drop Iowa State from the schedule. If ISU doesn’t land in a BCS league, that could hasten that move.
That’s true no matter how many capital letters Bill Fennelly uses. (The impact of conferencepocalypse on ISU basketball, men’s or women’s, will not be pretty.)
If we’re on the Island of Unwanted Toys
We’ll miss all the fun with the girls and the boys…