Gonzaga to join the Big 12?

[RonBurgundy]

First Colorado State, then the San Diego State obsession, now we are going to try to turd polish Omaha as a growing, valuable market? Good lord.

Gonzaga doesn't do anything for me. I'm still in the camp of we either add a current P5 school or we stay put. Of our 12 future members we already have Cincy, BYU, TCU, and UCF as promoted G5 schools. WVU gets in by a thread as a Big East rescue. The optics of a league where a big chunk of your teams were mid majors 15 years ago doesn't project strength. We already struggle with getting national media to respect the quality of what we put on the field, on the court, and in the stands. We don't need to help make it even easier to look down on us.

This take is quite dumb. TCU, Cincy, etc were added to save the conference. We had no choice.

Gonzaga is a premiere basketball school. No one in the conference, sans KU, has the national cache in MBB as Gonzaga. Absolutely no one in the national media looks down on Gonzaga. Dumb take to compare Gonzaga MBB to UCF FB.

And last I looked, that promoted G5 school called TCU seems to be carrying the FB banner pretty well this year.

 

[CloneIce]

I love it! Make this the unquestioned best basketball conference in the country. Build a big gap between us and the ACC and Big 10. That means a lot for prestige going forward.

 

[qwerty]

If basketball-only then absolutely. It would certainly jibe with Yormark's repeated statements of thinking outside the box and going national. If we add Gonzaga, getting one more to even it out makes sense, and UConn could fill that nicely.

UConn is the only public university in the Big East. The rest are all private and most are religious based.

 

[isucy86]

So Gonzaga has exploratory talks with the Big12 (after also talking with the Pac12 & Big East) and people not only have the Big12 adding Gonzaga, but also Creighton and Villanova.

It could be that Gonzaga makes sense as a travel partner if the Big12 only has BYU out west. But from an overall travel perspective, I would think the Pac would make the most sense if the current Pac 10 stays intact. Could actually see the Pac target Gonzaga & St. Mary to bump the conference back up to 12 teams for all but football. As Big12 fans, we know that 10 teams makes for a great FB schedule.

 

[alarson]

This take is quite dumb. TCU, Cincy, etc were added to save the conference. We had no choice.

Gonzaga is a premiere basketball school. No one in the conference, sans KU, has the national cache in MBB as Gonzaga. Absolutely no one in the national media looks down on Gonzaga. Dumb take to compare Gonzaga MBB to UCF FB.

And last I looked, that promoted G5 school called TCU seems to be carrying the FB banner pretty well this year.

The hard part about that is that that almost all comes under one coach, mark few.

Few won't be there forever. If they fall off when he leaves, they could fall off big. Its not like they have inherent advantages there.

 

[Zyklon]

Gonzaga fans seem to be all for it. I was expecting them to be more elitist but that was based on nothing more than my own ignorance and getting used to the Big12 getting **** on in every conversation.

I dont hate the idea, tho I like basketball more than football so my perception is skewed. In a perfect world we’d be back to our original twelve teams and add creighton and Wichita st in Olympics only, but in our decidedly imperfect world, they just don’t add anything in our time of need. Gonzaga and maybe Nova are the only possible (non P5) schools that could add prestige to our “brand” and I’m not even sure that they would. Yormakc and the networks need to go over the numbers very carefully. I would like it to work out, but I don’t want it to happen just to happen.

 

[2speedy1]

We would have to change the conference by laws as football is required for membership. While it is not something that is impossible, it is another step that would be required. I would think it would be a strange thing to bring in 1 non football school. Unless we are bringing in several, I guess.

I personally dont like the idea. But whatever, I guess.

 

[cykadelic2]

Needlessly adding commuter schools UH and UCF was bad enough, adding Gonzaga without FB would be just as needless.

 

[isufbcurt]

We would have to change the conference by laws as football is required for membership. While it is not something that is impossible, it is another step that would be required. I would think it would be a strange thing to bring in 1 non football school. Unless we are bringing in several, I guess.

I personally dont like the idea. But whatever, I guess.

Just curious why don't you like it?

 

[aeroclone]

The hard part about that is that that almost all comes under one coach, mark few.

Few won't be there forever. If they fall off when he leaves, they could fall off big. Its not like they have inherent advantages there.

Exactly. Gonzaga doesn't have any history to show that they can maintain this outside of Few. They have never been in anything close to a P5 conference. They could drop quite a bit with the big jump in competition and even more with a coaching change. Then you are stuck with a small, private school far removed from other members in a small city in a lower population state that already has 2 P5 schools and several pro teams taking up eyeballs. There is a lot risk to Gonzaga.

 

[Jer]

I’m going to state the obvious but not necessarily an opinion….

The more elite BB schools brought into the already toughest league, the harder the ladder will be each year. Especially for a horrible NIL player in the world of free/fee agency.

 

[CoachHines3]

I’m going to state the obvious but not necessarily an opinion….

The more elite BB schools brought into the already toughest league, the harder the ladder will be each year. Especially for a horrible NIL player in the world of free/fee agency.

HOPEFULLY you see some sort of guidance on it eventually but don’t wanna hold my breathe

 

[cykadelic2]

I’m going to state the obvious but not necessarily an opinion….

The more elite BB schools brought into the already toughest league, the harder the ladder will be each year. Especially for a horrible NIL player in the world of free/fee agency.

You should know better than to wrongly claim ISU is a horrible NIL player in MBB.

 

[isufbcurt]

You should know better than to wrongly claim ISU is a horrible NIL player in MBB.

you think ISU isn't a horrible NIL player (regardless of sport)?

 

[Jer]

You should know better than to wrongly claim ISU is a horrible NIL player in MBB.

Omaha has some decent coin but otherwise comparatively yes we are horrible.

 

[isuno1fan]

The hard part about that is that that almost all comes under one coach, mark few.

Few won't be there forever. If they fall off when he leaves, they could fall off big. Its not like they have inherent advantages there.

This. It’s a dumb move. Not gonna happen anyhow.

 

[isu81]

love this. we add schools in wrestling only, why not do it in basketball as well?

You could even make a case for teams like Nova and Creighton

Yormark is talking to Creighton as we speak. Not sure about Nova.

 

[Kinch]

It would be awesome. Kick Oklahoma out of wrestling when they are out and bring in the Zags in basketball. Play to our strengths.

 

[JP4CY]

You should know better than to wrongly claim ISU is a horrible NIL player in MBB.

I know where we stand vs Creighton. I messaged Blum my source and the numbers. He pretty much confirmed then added onto it with some other tidbits. We have a ways to go.

 

[cyatheart]

This feels like something they should've already done fwiw.

Sure we could, we had plenty of good teams. Not every year but we would be fine.