With all the conference realignment in college athletics, the last couple seasons in college hoops have felt incomplete. That’s not to suggest I’ve lost interest in the sport, but the destruction of deep-seeded rivalries and the slow crumbling of the Big East conference have at least watered down college basketball’s appeal.
The realignment hasn’t had as much of an effect on college football, as football is the driving force behind the conference switcheroos—those rivalries will remain intact. Save for perhaps the Texas-Texas A&M matchup, we haven’t seen many notable college football rivalries suffer from realignment (the Aggies just played their first season in the SEC after leaving the Big 12).
However, it’s a different story with college basketball rivalries. This is partly because they’re at the mercy of college football’s realignment, but also because the notable rivalries in college hoops differ greatly from those on the gridiron. For example, the expiration of Duke-Maryland in college football means nothing. It means zero of anything because both of those football programs blow.
However, the Blue Devils played their final conference basketball game at Maryland just two weeks ago. Yes, the two will play next year in Durham, N.C., but we just saw the last showdown in College Park, Md., of a series that dates back to 1925. North Carolina will always be Duke’s number one rival—in fact, it’s possibly the biggest in all of college sports—but Duke-Maryland was one of the better matchups in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), which was arguably the top college hoops league throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. And the Blue Devils-Terps exodus is only the latest of “lasts” in college basketball.
Last season, we saw the final regular-season matchup between Kansas and Missouri, a Big 12 rivalry that began back in 1907. The two went out in style, if it’s any consolation, as Kansas topped the Tigers 87-86 in overtime.
Georgetown played its final Big East regular-season game at Syracuse Saturday. The Hoyas-Orange matchup arguably carries the most tradition of any in Big East hoops, and this weekend’s crowd of 35,012—the largest attendance of an on-campus college basketball game in history—certainly showed the scope of the rivalry.
Within a couple years, the Big East conference will have blown up more than any other power-six conference. No one really cares, though, because the league isn’t relevant in football.
Syracuse and Pittsburgh will depart this summer for the ACC. Louisville will join them in 2014, and Notre Dame is scheduled join the ACC within the next three years—although in basketball only, as the Fighting Irish football program would never stoop so low as to share a conference (and how dare you suggest such blasphemy!) with other institutions. If you include West Virginia, which left the Big East last season to join the Big 12, that makes five Big East teams gone in a three- or four-season span, depending on Notre Dame’s basketball-only departure. Once again, few will raise an eyebrow because the Big East was a turd of a football conference, but decades of a college hoops staple will soon be no more.
Although these college basketball rivalries have and will continue to pass, the Big Ten conference hasn’t lost any of its tradition through the realignment. Now, I understand the conference sort of “stole” Nebraska and is the eventual landing spot for both Maryland and Rutgers. However, the Big Ten hasn’t lost any of its members, either. We’ll still see Michigan-Ohio State, Wisconsin-Minnesota, Indiana-Purdue and Michigan-Michigan State every year.
I suppose it’s only fitting that, as other power-six conferences watch longstanding rivalries come to an end, the Big Ten and its unscathed core is the best men’s hoops conference in the nation this season.
Five Big Ten teams are ranked in the Associated Press top 25, and two others have been ranked at some point this season. In fact, both of those teams—Illinois and Minnesota—have beaten Indiana, which currently sits atop the conference standings. Of those seven teams that have been ranked, all but Wisconsin have found their way into the top 10 at some point.
By no means do I think it’s fair to say the Big Ten is the Southeastern Conference’s (SEC) football version of college hoops, as the SEC gained that “title” after winning seven consecutive national championships. As far as this season goes, however, there is simply no better league than the Big Ten. And it shouldn’t be any other way.
Do you think there is anything wrong with conference realignment? Is the Big Ten the best college basketball conference this season? Let Vince know by sending him an email at sports@dailycardinal.com.
