The Big 12 is quietly a very decent basketball conference. It will be interesting to see if Cincinnati can revive its program, but the Huggins and Cronin years were pretty fun for them. Fickell doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. The problem is that Ohio State and Notre Dame dominate college viewing. Kentucky gets thrown into the mix for BB.
Literally the top basketball conference. Adding Cincy and UH makes it stronger. Last 2 national Champs, last 3 tournaments a ateam played for the natty
They've grown quite a bit in popularity in football. The stadium's small, but they regularly fill it. And they have definitely increased in TV exposure. Night games at Nippert have been a regular for weeknights on ESPN or Saturdays on 2 or U. Nippert is actually a really unique stadium and a fun place for a game when the atmosphere is right. It's just that for years, nobody cared. It was really the Dantonio era when people started to show. There was a time when you had to buy football season tickets to be eligible for basketball season tickets. When I was a kid, my dad would take me and it was kind of fun as a child to have the run of this big concrete bowl and be able to easily find my way back without fear of tripping over other fans.
But I imagine they’re way behind Ohio state and maybe others with Cincinnati being a big city in the region?
It doesn’t really make sense or matter to focus on who the new Big 12’s biggest brand is. They are all pretty equal with passionate fanbases that care about football and sports in general so there should a lot of parity and there will be viewer interest in watching that.
Ohio St. is bigger, but their margin in Cincinnati is smaller than in other Ohio cities. UC has a huge alumni base here who all of the sudden started caring about football over the last 15 or so years. ND is big here. It's a big Catholic town.
Big 12: sends 80% of its schools to the tournament, is regularly the top KenPom conf, plays in like every final four and wins back to back nattys herb: not a lot of people know this, little inside basketball, but they really play some decent ball over there
There won't be much viewer interest because espn and all national media coverage is geared toward playoffs only and if the big 12,pac 12 and acc get locked out of the playoffs, which is going to happen, nobody will tune into their games because they're essentially meaningless. big 12, pac 12 and ACC are basically just going to be saturday afternoon MACtion.
Cincinnati metro has about a half million living in Northern Kentucky as well, who think they’re SEC.
they wont be able to freeze anyone out under the ncaa’s control. The ncaa is terrified of Congress, same reason they’ve washed their hands on NIL stuff. now, once they finally break away, for sure. But they aren’t breaking away with 32 teams. Especially with schools like Indiana, Purdue, vandy etc as part of those 32
I paid a compliment. I think Big 12 basketball is good. I said quietly because the ACC, Big Ten and other conference get more press.
Herb is a lawyer who specializes in half-truths and makes up facts which is three ways of saying the same thing.
People forget “bad” Big12 football team Kansas beat Texas last year. And almost beat OU. You don’t find that competitive balance in the bSECpn.
Texas Tech Oklahoma State TCU Baylor Kansas Kansas State Iowa State Colorado Utah BYU Cal Stanford Oregon Oregon State Washington Wazzou Looks a fun conference tbh
I thought one of the knocks against TTU was that it was in the middle of nowhere…is that not the case? Outside of Austin and El Paso, I’ve not been anywhere in TX.
So the BigXII asks the Pac12 if they want to team up. Pac12 says no. Now all the BigXII has to do is invite the Pac schools they want, school by school, and get the same desired result anyway. Do I have that right?
The Big 12 has back to back national champions. Also, probably would have been 3 in a row since KU and Baylor would have bee the tourney favorites/top seeds in 2020 had the tourney taken place.