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Message: [QUOTE="ctchamps, post: 4694502, member: 37"] I believe this is part of the story. Equally important is that the universities who control the power conferences have the power to control events. And I believe those events are the continuation of consolidation. It is really about money. Football was the greatest money maker and easiest sport to consolidate because it was not under the NCAA's control regarding monetary distribution. Basketball is the next biggest money maker. We have already seen an effort made by the university powers to game this sport to their advantage when they were given a disproportionate number of individuals on the tournament selection committees. It would be naive to ignore that the next pot of gold is the consolidation of bb. Instead of distributing the basketball tournament"s monetary pie among the current NCAA formula there will be some 40 to some number approaching 100 universities (the number determined by the university power brokers based who is in control and on how they can obtain the most money for themselves) who will hive away from the NCAA and get that equivalent pot. It is not the 6 million vs 50 million vs 100 million dollars conferences are currently receiving that should be our primary focus as observers in this drama. The primary focus, even if we are mens basketball centric only fans, is to decide if we want to be in or out of that consolidated entity. Yes the networks (or streaming entities) are a factor in this process but any or all of them can be circumvented by the platforms providing the content. The Big 10 network has demonstrated this. The partnerships that we see today are very unlikely to exist in the future. Even though I support all UConn sports my first love is UConn mens bb and my nostalgic love is absolutely with the BE. But my projection of events and the belief that they will happen sooner than we think forces me to advocate getting into the B12 if offered. The product that even the best coach available could provide will never be as good if UConn finds itself on the outside of the consolidated entity. Furthermore I do not believe Yormack is a one hit wonder. He's a visionary who has proven himself and probably has a flexible plan to bring those universities associated with him to have the greatest chance of being alongside the SEC and BIG in the whatever form Division 1 sports exists. I don't think I'd bet against him to figure out a way to make the B12 as powerful or more powerful than the SEC or BIG even though it's a long shot. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach