Rice
TCU
SMU
Tulsa
Tulane
Baylor
Drake
Creighton
Bradley
Evansville
Denver
Houston Baptist

For what?

There aren't enough FB members and why would Baylor want to leave the Big12 for this?

Good point, I didn't think about the football.

Because in the Big 12 Baylor will never dance in men's basketball and remain at the bottom in football. And If UT and AM leaves the big 12, recruiting gets tougher for them in all sports.

The probalem with a magnolia is a lack of football playing privates. If Baylor was kicked out of the Big 12, it becomes not only viable, but perhaps likely. You can see 5 FBS private schools together pretty easily...

Rice
TCU
SMU
Tulsa
Tulane

but you need 8. That is hard to do with Privates only. The best I can imagine is BYU, Air force and ???? (and that still doesn't expalin why BYU would bail on Utah.) Again baylor in the Big 12 really hurts the other privates.

The scenario that would allow this to happen is the Big 12 booting Baylor and bringing in Utah, who would piss off all the mormons by abandoning BYU. It is POSSIBLE, but not very likely at all. In that scenario, BYU might make a move and would grab the privates. The problem is geography and trravel costs for BYU though. Still BYU's Texas recruiting would be a lot better.


Now adding 4 non-football privates is possible as there are a lot of good candidates if the football can be worked out.

I'd say:

Creighton
Bradley
St. Louis
Denver

That is a top academic conference with some reasonable BCS claims, and a salty BB conference with 5 top basketball programs (BYU, Creighton, St. Louis, Tulsa, and Bradley).

What about adding Duke, Wake Forest, Tulane, and Vanderbilt?

Rice
TCU
SMU
Tulsa
Tulane
Creighton
Bradley
St. Louis
Denver
Wake Forest
Vanderbilt
BYU
Air Force
Ofcourse too big, so subtract a unlikely team.

I think the SEC would boot Vandy and two more schools to get UT, OU, and Aggies. That would open up room in the Big 12 for Utah. Maybe Houston and UTEP to the big 12 too.

Playa, this really should be in the dream conferences for fun thread. i'm gonna lock it up and you can start it up over there.

some basics reasons:
You have some Denver, one of the least desirable teams in the NCAA (sunbelt would prefer they leave, WCC won't currently take them) mixed with football playing members. You have a team from the SEC leaving or getting kicked out when they are one of the most importantly members due to their academics. the same goes with Wake Forest and the ACC (currently the #1 RPI conference in basketball). Then you have Mountian West members leaving for a weaker new conference that includes basketball only teams.

When imagining conference lineups, you have to include logic in any format. And the rule of NCAA conference realignment is very simple: $$$. Schools leave a conference for a better opportunity. they don't leave to make less money for their schools and start new conferences that when the NCAA has already said it will not permit any new automatic NCAA basketball bids.

_________________


@ncaasports csi.com/facebook


Like the new CSI Userbar? Feel free to use it here and any other forums.
You can save and host it yourself or link from here.