HookEm

I think it will be interesting to see which schools make a leap in the the coming years. It wouldn't surprise me to see UCF become relevant. Their program has only been around ~40 years and the university has grown rapidly in recent years. Back in 2000, they only had around ~30,000 students. Today they have 71,000 and are the largest school in the country. That is a lot of eyeballs. When they start collecting Big 12 money and play more national games, it will be fun to see if they take advantage of the opportunity.

That's fine. The Big 12 would fall all over themselves to take Miami if the SEC and Big 10 passed on them. Miami would be the highest profile team in the conference and could be a nice partner for Virginia Tech and UCF. Miami is also a sneaky good basketball program (1 FF, 2 E8, 4 S16 since 2013) which matters to the Big 12. And they are a smaller private school that would fit in with some of the other private schools in the Big 12. It baffles me that anyone would take NC State over Miami honestly. Miami is better at just about everything that matters including academics. A lot more people would tune in to see Texas Tech vs. Miami than TT vs. NC State. And the icing on the cake is that you can recruit South Florida, probably the most dense area for NFL caliber talent in the whole country.

As long as there are crappy teams like Northwestern and Vanderbilt in the Big 10 and SEC, then there should be at least another conference (Big 12) full of the remaining teams that are better than them. With 16 teams, a conference can still feel like a conference. Not sure at 18 or 20. 24 teams is ridiculous. With 12 playoff spots it will sort itself out. The better conferences will get more teams in than the weak conferences, but they still matter. Even if they only get a team or two in. The best cast for me is to get to 3 conferences of 20 and stop there. In a typical playoff, the Big might get 4-5 teams, the SEC 4-5 teams, the Big 12 2-3 and maybe 0-1 comes from the rest. So to get there the following adds make sense: Big 10 - Notre Dame and UNC SEC - FSU, Miami, Clemson, UVA Big 12 - VT, Pitt, Louisville, Duke Best homeless: NC State, Georgia Tech, Stanford, WSU, Oregon St, Syracuse, UConn, Villanova, SD State

He will probably decommit in March. \Haters

C'mon. That isn't even close. Have a little pride.

The Big 12 would be dumb to add Stanford and Cal. They are difficult to deal with and bring very little to the party besides academics. They are terrible cultural fits and would make everything more difficult. At this point the Big 12 should be waiting to see what happens with the ACC, prepared to scoop up any great assets that don't get invited to the Big 10 or SEC. Why add Cal or Stanford when you could potentially add UNC, Virginia Tech, Miami and Pitt down the road? Or Virginia. Or Duke. Or Louisville. Or possibly even FSU or Clemson if they get lucky.

Your family should start coming to grips with the fact that they are going to be in the Mountain West.

Why would the Big 10 want Stanford and Cal when they could add Duke and UNC... who are almost equivalent academic institutions, but offer vastly better athletics and eyeballs. Regardless, the Big 10 won't add two more schools. We may be stopping at 20 and they are going to leave open a spot for Notre Dame guaranteed.

Going to be fun to.... make him eat crow.

Fair enough. Then Miami to the Big 12. SEC takes Pitt or Virginia or UNC instead.

With 20 teams, you can divide into 5-team pods that preserve a lot of the regional rivalries. Teams can play every team in their pod, plus one team in the other pods for a total of 7 games. If they expand to 10 conference games, they can also have a permanent rival in each of the other pods that they play every year.

I think the conferences will continue to expand. I see the SEC and Big 10 eventually expanding to 20 teams and stopping there. That is going to continue to create instability. And where will the expansion come from? NOT the Big 12. And probably not from the dross of the PAC-10. The remaining west coast assets are garbage. So that leaves the ACC. And as good as the academics are at Cal and Stanford, there are also extremely good academic universities in the ACC that also are decent on the field / court. It is a game of chicken. No school will want to be where Oregon State and Cal are right now. So if a few ACC teams decide to move - or there are even RUMORS that they will move, the 2nd tier teams will immediately start scrambling, just like ASU, Utah, Colorado, etc. Boom, it will be easy to get the 6 signatures needed. If we assume the SEC and Big10 will get to 20, then I see it playing out like this: SEC Florida State - This will be the first domino in the next phase IMO Clemson - Best asset available outside of ND and FSU Virginia Tech (or Virginia) - Virginia is the better all around get IMO, but I think they are a better fit in the Big 10. Miami - Best brand available. Keeps the Big 10 (and largely the Big 12) out of Florida Big 10 Notre Dame - Obvious destination Virginia - Flagship school with solid athletics and great academics Big 12 North Carolina - Basketball school who will fit right in to the Big 12 and will take advantage of a Big 12 hoops contract Duke - Part of the deal with UNC. Also private schools that could do well in the Big 12 Louisville - Another great school to add to the hoops contract. Can be decent at football Pitt - Last, best available piece. Natural partner for WV. (Better add than NC State or Georgia Tech) Then you wind up with the following footprints:

Fair. What if the Big 12 also added Pitt, Miami and FSU? ND has had good rivalries with all those schools. And they would be free to play Michigan and USC out of conference instead of having to meet them in conference (or even risk not playing them due to conference scheduling difficulty). (Puts the crack pipe down)

I don’t see why the Big 12 doesn’t push to get to 20 and stop there. I think I’m the end we wind up with three 20 team conferences and everybody else. The Big 12 could make a strong case to Notre Dame that they are the only conference who respects religious institutions. I think this matters more than many realize. Baylor, BYU and TCU would all help make the case. Plus if ND goes to the Big 10 or SEC, they will always be wrestling for power with the old guard. The Big 12 has a power vacuum that Notre Dame could immediately step in and fill. And the ACC will not survive once a few of the big names start getting poached. If the Big 12 could get Notre Dame, then FSU and Clemson also become realistic. Round it out with North Carolina or Virginia Tech or Miami and then be done. Things are going to get crazy once the ACC fire sale starts.

Did you forget Baylor who won a title like 2 years ago? Sooo many good hoops schools in the Big 12. Houston also has it going.

When do you need to know definitively?

In in for 4. Possibly 6.

Air Max shoe has too much black, which isn't even one of our colors. Looks like crap IMO. The Pegasus 40 on the other hand looks great.

I'm not saying Dwyane Wade is better than Kobe. Kobe obviously had a better career. I'm just saying I would probably rather PLAY with prime Wade. Here are the stats from both of their best years (in PTS, PER, WS and VORP). Both at 27 yrs old. Wade ('08) - 30.2 PTS, 7.5 AST, 5.0 TRB, 1.3 BLK, 2.2 STL, 56.2 TS%, 51.6 eFG%, 9.6 VORP, 14.7 WS, 0.232 WS/48, 30.4 PER Kobe ('06) - 35.4 PTS, 4.5 AST, 5.3 TRB, 0.4 BLK, 1.8 STL, 55.9 TS%, 49.1 eFG%, 8.0 VORP, 15.3 WS, 0.224 WS/48, 28.0 PER Tell me any of you would honestly rather play with Kobe from these years. Wade was more efficient, had more assists, played better defense, more steals, more blocks, better WS/48, better PER, better just about everything. And he did it all while involving his teammates to a much greater degree. If there is another Kobe year that was better than Wade in 2008, go ahead and post it.

That was probably the nadir of his young life.

On the wrong team Kobe could be a cancer. And also didn’t seem especially fun to play with.

(Correction: Top 30 in PLAYOFF blocks)

Wade also made an All Defense team 3 times. He got a ton of blocks for a guard and actually ranks top 30 in career blocks. I’ll take prime Wade and career Wade all day every day. I’m not actually sure I would pick prime Kobe over prime Wade if I was on a playground. Wade was a better teammate and would be much more fun to play with.

I've been meaning to take a closer look at WV. They actually have done very well in the portal this year and most seem to be staying. Here is what their roster currently looks like: G - Kerr Kriisa - SR - 9.9 PTS, 2.4 TRB,5.1 AST, 70 GS, 76 GP - Transfer from Arizona (#17 Transfer) G - RaeQuan Battle - SR+ - 17.7 PTS, 2.9 TRB, 0.9 AST, 35 GS, 104 GP - Transfer from Montana - 1st Team Big Sky (#43 Transfer) G - Omar Silverio - SR+ - 10.9 PTS, 3.3 TRB, 1.1 AST - Transfer from Hoffstra F - Quinn Slazinski - SR+ - 11.3 PTS, 5.7 TRB, 1.9 AST, 34 GS - Transfer from Iona (#281 Transfer) F - Jesse Edwards - SR+ - 14.5 PTS, 10.3 TRB, 1.6 AST, 56 GS, 95 GP - Transfer from Syracuse - 3rd Team All ACC (#14 Transfer) G - Jeremiah Bembry - SO - Redshirted - Transfer from Florida State - (#260 Transfer) G - Seth Wilson - JR - 4.2 PTS, 0.9 TRB, 0.5 AST, 0 GS, 54 GP - Returning player F - Pat Suemnick - JR - 1.4 PTS, 1.3 TRB, 0.1 AST, 0 GS, 37 GP - Returning player G - Kobe Johnson - JR - 2.0 PTS, 1.0 TRB, 0.5 AST, 4 GS, 61 GP - Returning player F - Josiah Harris - SO - 1.8 PTS, 0.9 TRB, 0.1 AST, 0 GS, 17 GP - Returning player Still in the portal, but may return: G - Jose Perez - SR+ - 18.9 PTS, 3.2 TRB, 4.5 AST, 76 GS, 97 GP - Transfer from Manhattan - 1st Team All MAAC Departing Erik Stevenson - NBA Tre Mitchell - Transfer Kedrian Johnson - Graduated Emmitt Matthews - Graduated Joe Toussaint - Transfer Jimmy Bell - Transfer Mohamed Wague - Transfer James Okonkwo - Transfer Josiah Davis - Transfer Jamel King - Transfer Maybe having them in the 40s is too high, but they aren't going to suck IMO. They haven't played together, but overall their roster will be one of the most experienced in the country. Just about everyone is a senior or 5th yr senior. They also have a couple of potential all-conference type players in Edwards and Battle. They still could sign another player or two.

Here is what the schedule might look like, along with where I think teams will land in the preseason rankings: KU - 1 - Away UH - 6 - Home & Away UT - 17 BU - 18 - Home & Away TCU - 23 - Away KSU - 30 - Home ISU - 37 - Home CINC - 38 - Away OU - 40 - Home & Away TT - 42 - Home & Away WV - 44 - Home & Away OSU - 48 - Home UCF - 68 - Home BYU - 70 - Away