0:00
From UCF to West Virginia, heck, even BYU, the SEC bias is killing, not just football,
0:06
but now basketball to how are their 10 SEC teams in March Madness.
0:12
This, where the best, this is our sport is what we do, is locked on big 12.
0:19
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0:35
Happy Monday, everybody. No, Tuesday, everybody. Nice. Welcome to locked on big 12. I'm Drake
0:40
toll from America's number one big 12 podcast locked on big 12. Thank you for making this show
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I have fun doing this party. I have fun talking to you every day. Share it with your friends.
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We should all be watching or listening to locked on big 12. We should all come together and be
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be happy with be friends. We'll start with the SEC. Just once again ruining my day. I saw a new
1:07
metric. The big 12 is 14 and two against the SEC in college basketball, but for some reason the SEC
1:11
gets 10 teams. We get seven. How does that make any sense? Then this big 12 merger thing, TJ
1:17
Pitinger is going to join the show college football addiction to talk about the ACC big 12 coming
1:21
together. Is that going to happen? I think the big 12 needs to demand a lot from the ACC if it is.
1:25
Then West Virginia is getting posed. Auburn's in the tournament and West Virginia is not even on the
1:30
bubble. How does that happen? Sorry, my angsty today. Does it feel like I'm mad today? I'm sorry. I
1:37
should. This is fun. We're all having fun together. If you hit subscribing to keep my job, TJ.
1:44
Let's do a talk. Drake, we're in the march. You know what that time of year means and it's not
1:50
the tournament, which byproduct of what we'll talk today. It is time for the biased machine to crank
1:56
back up. Yeah, it's time for our college football addiction to talk a little about you.
2:01
And look, the realm of that is not necessarily like we're actually talking hoops and we can
2:06
or we will, but this is more about the rhetoric that's killing college sports permeating in basketball
2:13
as well. I don't understand. I don't. Jolenarty is somebody we can get to, but the SEC getting 11 teams
2:20
in right now, including a 16 and 15 Auburn squad is unreal. Shouldn't happen. Can't happen.
2:27
On Twitter, Kramer Holly post this says a reminder, the big 12 is the only conference with a
2:34
winning record against every other power conference. They are 14 and two against the SEC. The big
2:40
12 teams started to look worse when they played each other. Obviously, but the SEC bias has gone too far.
2:46
Again, listen to this, TJ. The big 12 is 45 and 31 against other conferences. The SEC is 36
2:56
and 45. The big 12 is 14 games about 500. The SEC's nine games below 500 and we don't seem to care.
3:04
That is because the SEC makes the most money. They have the biggest brand in Jolenarty and ESPN
3:10
gets to their paying all of their money to to support. It's the SEC and they want them to continue
3:16
to win. So they're going to let Missouri in. They're going to let Texas in. They're going to let
3:20
Auburn in. TJ and Barry, the big 12, what we're seeing is I just don't understand. I get it in
3:26
football because we've told you for 20 years, the SEC is the best. So yeah, idiots galore. You can
3:32
all believe that even though the big 10 keeps winning championships. But the fact that it's ruining
3:36
my college basketball, this was my sacred sanctity. This is the one thing I can count on to not be
3:41
ruined. And now it's just more SEC. It's interesting when the SEC does well out of conference,
3:49
which I will remind you, they had a losing record to the ACC in football this year. But when
3:53
they do well out of conference and they win conference games early, which I will tell you as well,
3:59
just like caveat to that, the SEC was better than the ACC out of conference until the post season.
4:07
Like it flipped at the very end in some ball games and then the playoff, which to me should
4:12
matter more, but for the entire of the season, they had a better record. And then when they,
4:18
like we just said, you beat each other up during the regular season when an SEC team plays an SEC
4:23
team, I mean, we don't even make jokes about that. Typically you and I who want to throw jabs,
4:28
because yeah, an SEC team had to lose when a big 12 team plays a big 12 team in basketball during
4:33
the regular season, spoiler alert, a big 12 team loses in that game. As crazy as that might sound,
4:39
we don't do ties in football anymore and really never have in basketball. So we don't get that
4:46
same grace, right? And I say, we and you guys, the big 12, I'm pretty impartial here on this one,
4:51
but they're that same grace is not given of, oh, you lost some conference games because you
4:57
playing a conference, you don't get that same bidding for the doubt. Last year, remember the SEC
5:02
got 14 teams into the tournament, half of them lost the first weekend. And this would have been
5:08
a situation where of course you're going to have some teams lose. And the more teams you have in,
5:12
the more losses a conference will take because ultimately only one team can lift the trophy.
5:18
So yeah, at the very best, the SEC was only going to have one team that didn't lose the tournament,
5:24
which they actually did. Unfortunately, it was UF. But for all of their teams who were
5:29
fringe bubble teams to then end up losing in the first round and losing the first weekend and
5:34
not even advancing on after their rough rigid SEC schedule was pretty telling. Now it looks like
5:41
11 are going to get in this year. So some of them at least are not going to send a new record
5:45
of putting all 16 teams in. But again, bidding for the doubt at the end of the day, we've got under 500
5:51
in conference teams that are going to make it. We also have, you know, it's crazy. We have Bruce
5:57
Pearl who is just screaming at people to let his son and Auburn into the tournament. And they say
6:04
Bruce, this is just nepotism. He got a higher due to nepotism. And oh, by the way, Bruce, you're
6:10
you're willing him due to because of nepotism because of nepotism into the NCAA tournament. And due
6:15
to that, they're getting publicity. And Bruce has said, yeah, I am. I am bending the rules. I am
6:20
breaking the rules. I am doing something that is just not journalistic at all. Yeah, making
6:24
millions of dollars to be on a TV network. But you know what? I don't care. My son should be in March
6:29
madness. And now that storyline is permeated so much that Auburn is right there squarely on the
6:35
bubble. They have a pretty clean opportunity to go to March madness and be in the NCAA tournament,
6:40
which makes zero sense. They're below 500 in SEC play and 16 and 15 over the same resume is
6:48
Baylor. And no one's talking about Baylor getting the March madness. I am and we'll talk more
6:53
about about specifically how Auburn stacks up to some of these big 12 schools that are being left
6:57
out. But this is what confuses me even more. The SEC is not in bed with with CBS or TNT anymore,
7:08
right? But it feels like when's the last time someone's like, yeah, my favorite TV show,
7:13
my favorite sports show is CBS today. No, or I love watching TNT. There's sports coverage.
7:19
No, we don't have that. We don't talk about the only driving factor right now. Maybe
7:24
the driving factors in college sports are ESPN and Fox as this propaganda machine. The ESPN
7:31
propaganda machine is twice as strong as Fox. That's what people watched what they listened to. It's
7:34
what they go to. And hopefully that that day changes soon enough. And they listen to more locked
7:39
on big 12 in college for ball addiction. But this this whole system is rigged to support the teams
7:45
of the ESPN, the ESPN juggernaut and monster loves. And so the big 12 can have five top 10 teams
7:52
and only get seven teams in March. Matt and his compared to the SEC is TJ.
7:56
Ultimately, the more that SEC teams win, even on other networks, the more ESPN feels like it wins.
8:02
So it's just allowing its bias to creep into the sport so hard that it affects who goes to the
8:08
national championship, who has an opportunity to compete for the national championship. What was
8:12
also really interesting about last year compared to this year is, and again, this is unfortunate for
8:16
me sitting in my seat and where I am last year. It felt like the SEC really had three maybe
8:22
four teams that could look like Florida was really good. Obviously, they ended up winning it.
8:26
Alabama was really good. Auburn was really good. And you have teams that could absolutely have
8:32
competed for it all. Maybe it was just those three, you know, you'd like to look at some other
8:37
teams in the SEC and think like, ah, maybe if you're hot, you know, March is weird,
8:41
we see lower than a one or two win it from time to time. This year, you know, not saying that,
8:47
you know, Arkansas couldn't get hot. I'm not saying that A&M couldn't get hot. Not saying
8:51
that Alabama couldn't get back there. It feels like Florida and everybody else. Like last year,
8:55
I kind of understood the argument because I thought you had a lot not to have 14 in, but to have
9:00
more than normal. And when they got the bidding for the doubt, you could say, yeah, they've got
9:05
four or five teams that could go win this thing. So it kind of makes sense that, yeah, I mean,
9:10
yeah, you are going to pile up a little few more losses. And maybe they were a little bit better
9:13
out of conference and that carry a little more weight. And we're in a situation now where Florida
9:19
can definitely go win it all. There's no doubt. I like to actually talk ball for a minute. Florida
9:23
can go win it. I'm not guess if Arkansas got like Tennessee's not winning this thing. I don't
9:29
think Vandy's winning this thing. You know, Alabama, maybe, you know, I don't know that I have a
9:34
lot of confidence in them without, you know, playing guys from the NBA. So it's not the same
9:40
leagues it was last year. And they're still going to get the most teams in, aren't they?
9:46
Yeah, they are. And that's Texas isn't that good at basketball. Missouri isn't very good at
9:51
basketball. Those two teams don't stack up to a West Virginia. They don't stack up to a Cincinnati
9:56
to a UCF out of the big club. Heck, TJ, the ACC is also feeling the ramifications of this.
10:02
They might not get NC state in. They might not get SMU in. Those are two teams that probably
10:06
deserve to be there of Virginia Tech, despite their recent losses is also somewhere around that
10:11
bubble area. And I think better than Texas and Missouri, but because of the SEC patch,
10:17
they're going to get special treatment. That is very obviously bad. We're in a bad spot in college
10:22
basketball because of that. And it's all because the propaganda of major TV networks and not
10:26
that football is any better. But now that it's ruining my ruining my college basketball, I'm just
10:31
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13:06
Drake, we've talked about this before, but it's starting to come up. It's the off season. So of
13:11
course, it's starting to come up. We've talked about the media rights between ESPN, the big 10 and
13:16
what the ACC and the big 12 have. Would a merger between the ACC and big 12 for media rights make
13:22
sense? Yeah, I saw this tweet from CW Lambert who follows pretty closely expansion of
13:28
realignment. He said the big 12 and the ACC are on the verge of a TV rights merger. So in
13:34
essence, what this would mean, take the two conferences, put them together, merge the two leagues,
13:39
and try to compete with the $55 million a year that the SEC and big 10 are giving their
13:43
programs in the big ACC. If you mix the two, the goal is to get to the 45 million, 50
13:52
million, 55 million mark for your schools, your member institutions. And right now each conference
13:57
sits individually around $33 35 million. So that's a gap of 20 million a year between the big 12
14:03
and the SEC or the ACC and the big 10. That's the goal is to close that gap. Problem is,
14:10
a couple of layers to this. Number one, three, four, five ACC schools want to get out of the ACC.
14:16
They would not be interested in following along with this. They want to go to the big 10. They
14:20
want to go to the SEC. You want to find more money elsewhere and feel like they deserve more
14:23
money. Clemson, Florida State Miami, you probably deserve more money. Miami just went to the
14:29
national championship camp. And another massive piece of this TGA to follow is you can't have a
14:35
conference of 33 teams. You would have to trim the fat of these two that you would say the big 12
14:41
Brett, your mark, who's in a position of leverage, who I don't think should ever do this because he
14:45
can just go to the ACC and steal Louisville and Virginia Tech and pit. And whoever he wants when
14:50
Florida, Satan Clemson leave the big 12 commissioner, Brett, your mark is looking at this and saying,
14:55
I'm not taking Syracuse. We don't want Boston college. We cannot, we cannot make more money.
15:00
We're going to be doling out millions of dollars to wake forest every year that we're wasting
15:06
those dollars could have gone to BYU. Those dollars could have gone to team like NC State if
15:11
they're able to make it in Boston college. Syracuse, we don't need that. We don't want that. If you're
15:16
to merge your media rights, it would be while trimming some fat out of these leagues. SMU could be
15:21
a piece of that as well. And TJ, honestly, one of the reasons that I brought this up off camera
15:25
with you and brought up the topic, you're the ACC guy. I mean, is this the life? Because the
15:30
Pac-12 fell apart. Is this the kind of life raft that keeps that league alive? Or is it kind of
15:37
doomed, doomed to fail in four years anyway? Probably more so the latter. But
15:46
which can I, sorry, I don't know what to catch up. 2030, 2031 is when ESPN's contract with the ACC
15:51
starts to really wane out. And schools can leave for, yeah. Yeah. So we can wane out. But here's
15:57
here's what the ACC has. And so 2036 is when the deal is up and the way that listen, I'm not
16:04
given the ACC any credit for this. But as much as we talked about it being a negative that the ACC
16:10
signed their deal through 2036, if Florida State leaves and Clemson leaves and Miami leaves and
16:15
North Carolina, maybe anybody else, they're protected. The ACC's deal goes through 2036. And as much
16:22
as we crapped on them from the program perspective, I'm just going to let it keep going. As much as
16:27
we crapped on them from the program perspective and how that wasn't a good deal for Florida State
16:33
and why that wasn't in their best interest, when you look at it from the perspective of the ACC,
16:38
there's not a, there's not an addendum that says, but if your big brands leave, you get cut down
16:46
a few million dollars a year or whatever it is. The ACC would just need to get back up to the
16:51
minimum number of teens, which I believe is 15. So they're going to try and add the mimfaces in the
16:55
US apps and the two lanes and programs like that if they haven't found a home. So if you're the ACC
17:01
and it's members, you kind of know that the ship is sinking anyway. So why not let it sink and make as
17:08
much money as you can for that five or six years? It's like you said, Syracuse is never getting
17:12
an invite to the big 12. If your Georgia Tech, why not just take all that money that Florida State
17:17
was making and Clemson was making and Miami was making, you're now the big dog in the ACC,
17:23
makes that for four or five years and when that deal looks like it's coming to an end,
17:27
then you try to jump to the big 10 unlikely or the big 12 of SEC something like that. I think that
17:34
the ACC is kind of doomed one way or the other, but I think because they wrote such a long deal,
17:40
they'll be saved until 2036. Then around that time, I think ESPN comes back and says,
17:47
we'll give you a deal, but it's going to look a lot closer to what the Americans get in the AAC
17:52
skin. Then what even the big 12 is getting at that point. So okay. And sorry to hijack the show
17:57
here. By the way, I like that your light went out. It's giving you this like ominous look to get
18:02
this kind of dark five. This intense five. So with that, 2036 is the true bow and all update.
18:12
The reason I'm bringing up 2030, 2031 is Florida State. You hit on this Florida State and Clemson
18:18
or Duke if they want to or Virginia, paying a much lower fee to exit the ACC and just going
18:25
somewhere else and trying to jumpstart their new, their new found conference and their new membership
18:31
with somebody else like the big 10 of the SEC. And if that happens, I'm going to, here's my
18:36
statement and I want you to corroborate or or push back. The big 12 is in a better spot than
18:42
the ACC two leagues making similar money and revenue. The big 12 is in a better spot than the ACC.
18:48
Even despite the lack of postseason success, the ACC has had. I'm putting the big 12 above that
18:53
conference because its member institutions want to stay 16 teams that want to be there 16 teams
18:59
that that are happy with the grant of rights. Whereas the ACC half year schools petitioned to leave
19:05
three years ago. TJ, I want to take the conference. I'm, I'm siding with the conference. I'm
19:09
giving leverage to the conference whose teams want to be there whose schools want to be there.
19:15
I think you're right that the big 12 would be in a better spot. There's no doubt. I mean, like,
19:20
I don't have there's no argument against that. The big question would be, so Georgia Tech is the
19:25
best example to me. They've had top three viewership the last two years in the ACC. Crazy. That's
19:31
crazy. Now they weren't, it's a five year rolling total for higher payouts if you're in the ACC.
19:38
So they weren't quite at the top of that. Shockingly, Florida State was still was, even with all
19:41
their bad that's been mixed in with a couple of good years. If Florida State and Clemson were to leave,
19:47
in Miami was to leave, in North Carolina was to leave. The Georgia Tech say, man, I'll go to the big
19:52
12 right now for the stability. Or do they say, man, I'd really like three or four years where
19:57
I make all the money. Like where Florida State got this extra $20 million a year, well,
20:02
closer to $15 million a year. But then you remove the Florida State Clemson and Miami payouts,
20:07
that could be like an additional 20 to $25 million a year for Georgia Tech above what kind of the
20:14
big 12 in the ACC kind of median is. And so that would be what was interesting. It will be interesting
20:20
when they need to make that decision is, yeah, the big 12 stability would be there. Same kind of
20:25
question for Louisville or Virginia Tech. But man, what if Franklin kind of turns them into a winner?
20:30
And then there at the top of the pecking order when it comes to TV viewership. In all reality,
20:37
stability probably does mean the most. But a lot of these athletic directors and presidents are
20:42
going to try and have their cake and eat it too. Hey, let's do three years of this ACC extra $20
20:48
million. And then let's jump to the big 12, right? Like let's not leave right away. And we'll blame
20:53
it on we don't have the $75 million to jump right now. We'll jump when it gets a little cheaper,
20:58
you know, a few years later. So that will be the interesting question to me is, yeah, Florida
21:03
State Clemson, Miami, they'll probably all be gone around 2030. But what do the tier two teams do
21:09
at that point? Because we'll all agree Syracuse Boston College, you know, a lot of these schools,
21:16
they're up a creek without a paddle. What does that next tier of teams do? Virginia,
21:21
tech, Louisville, Georgia Tech teams like that. I think there's a really good chance they just
21:26
stick around for the increased payout. And then at that point, I mean, you know, with the big 12 turn
21:33
away, a Louisville, but just because they didn't come in 2030, probably not, they'd probably still
21:37
take them in 2036. So I think that's probably the most interesting part of all of this.
21:42
Yeah, I am it's the money side. People need to be tracking on this one. And for the big 12,
21:48
I don't think the money would make sense. It won't to take away for us to Syracuse. It would be
21:53
brought your mark calling Jim Phillips and saying, I am the captain now. I'm commandeering your
21:58
conference. I'll I want these eight schools. And the big 12 is a 24 member conference. We'll split up
22:04
into three or four, six or eight team factions and those teams will play together. We'll bring back
22:11
regionality in college football. That's what I would love to see. You know, that's the one piece.
22:15
If these conferences get big enough, then we can divvy that where Oregon doesn't have to play
22:19
Rutgers and Oregon, Oregon can just stay on the West Coast and still play eight games relatively
22:24
close to them and then go to a tournament format semi-final final for the big 10 championship.
22:29
That's when I'll start to get more around the idea that this is working. This is something that
22:33
is sustainable. The big 12 by poaching ACC schools could garner that and give West Virginia a lot
22:39
of games in its backyard. Well, also just kind of bubbling up Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado,
22:45
BYU have them play each other. That's not a bad thing. Yeah, if you almost had, I mean,
22:49
that's what, you know, that's why regionality made so much sense in college athletics anyway.
22:53
But if you had a league that had West Virginia and Pittsburgh and Louisville and Virginia tech,
22:59
all in it, right? And then a couple, you know, an NC state in there too, even a Georgia daddy.
23:04
Yeah, I guess that's a daddy. Yeah, like all of that is right there. Yes, since the
23:08
daddy's very close, like I think that's ultimately and that's why it did work for so long is because
23:14
you had regionality among brands, like Florida States never, you know, even with it being a North
23:20
Carolina type conference, Raleigh is not that far. Chapel Hill is not that far. Durham is not
23:25
that far. Georgia Tech, it's an hour long flight from Tallahassee. All that stuff made a ton of
23:31
sense. Now, when you added the Louisvilles of the world, yeah, you went a little further. When
23:35
you added the Syracuse of the world, you went a little further and now you've added the cows of
23:38
the world and you're traveling cross country that doesn't make a lot of sense, but it is what it is.
23:43
I think a lot of it could make sense. You even mentioned SMU, you know, from a regionality standpoint,
23:48
does SMU make sense to add all those Texas teams? I mean, they need to add quite a bit. I know
23:52
they're winning right now and that helps, but they need to win pretty consistently and grow that
23:56
fan base. I mean, they certainly have the money commitment. But I think there could be a lot of
24:00
things in the ACC that make sense for the big 12. And when the ACC craters, I mean, certainly,
24:05
that's who's going to look to pick up some of the, I only want to call them scraps with those
24:09
tier B teams or tier two teams.
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Okay. And look in a vacuum. Somebody out there saying, Oh, well, of course,
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I get a good number. Yeah, Auburn. Listen, this is a tweet from Jack John semi on Twitter.
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Alabama jumps from Jolin artist 15th overall team to 10th overall team with a win at home this
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last week over Auburn Auburn at 16 and 15 with two quad two losses and a quad three loss as well
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as barely beating in overtime. But you and Cookman is in the field. Auburn's in March madness.
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West Virginia. They're not in the last four in the first four out the next four out.
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They're somewhere way buried super deep by Jolin already in the ether so that you can
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so you can never find them. How? Okay. Listen, listen, just hear the metrics. Here's what's confusing
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the same West Virginia team that just beat BYU and they'll rank the top 20 that beat UCF 77 to 62.
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They had a bit they had a skill. They lost at home to you. They lost some bad games, but hey,
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so has Auburn and so has Santa Clara. So have the teams Jolin already has in in his bubble like
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SMU or VCU for West Virginia. They are the seventh team in the big 12. Iowa State is the fifth team
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in the big 12. Okay. Iowa State currently creates out as a two seed in March madness.
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But West Virginia is not in the field. How could you be a spot behind a two seed in March madness?
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Yet you don't even get a bubble distinction to go to the big dance. How do you finish a three
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spots about BYU who's a six seed in March madness? Yet you do not have the respect. You finished
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above the six seed in conference play. You beat them three games ago. Yet you don't yet to be in the
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NCAA tournament. Oh, and by the way, that'll let you not get to attend the tournament. We're not
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even going to talk about you having the possibility to be in the tournament. TJ, this is the same
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West Virginia team that's got pretty strong. Like they went on the road across the country to
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beat Arizona State. They went on the road and beat UCF. They went on the road and beat Cincinnati.
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Arizona. I mean, that Arizona State went. They they they've proven themselves. They beat
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Kansas earlier this year. They've proven themselves against opponents on the road and at home. I just
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Auburn, TJ, we're letting Auburn in, but we can't let West Virginia and toy the big dance again.
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They got snubblash. She'll be snubbed again. Well, you asked the question and I know you asked
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it hypothetically, but the answer is the reason they're not getting the consideration is because they
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have the wrong conference logo on their chest. Yeah. I mean, that's all it is. You know, you you look
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at the metrics. You look at the way they grade out. You look at the wins that they've had the quality,
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you know, they're getting penalized for playing the big 12, which is a great basketball conference.
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Like if you want to say whatever you want, like we you're a homer for the big 12. I get it. And then
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I take a pretty pro big 12 stance. I'm not out here fighting that the big 12 is the best
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conference in college football. I'm just not right. Like I'm not an idiot. I understand, you know,
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anybody that argues against the big 10 right now is it's kind of crazy, but I'm not arguing that.
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But when you look at where the big 12 is from a conference standpoint and the number of elite
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and eat great and then really good teams that this conference has and the story lies. I mean,
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look at UCF this year. When you look at what the big 12 has done back, you know, not just this
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year, multiple years now. I think it is so disrespectful to, I mean, I don't know that West Virginia is
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a blue blood, but like West Virginia is a historically great basketball program. Like and so we're not
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talking about, oh, flashing the pan. Good one year. We need to see it multiple years, which is not
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really how tournament times should be decided anyway. But we're talking about a great basketball
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program that is completely getting the shafts. And again, it's because they don't have the conference
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logo. If they had, you know, if you if you replace some of those big, big 12 wins with some of them
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mid to your SEC teams, those would have just met more. Right. If you go on the road and you beat
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Texas, then you're in. If you go, if you if you win at home, go be at other teams, win at home
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against Auburn LSU, then you're in. At that point, we like you. We want you to succeed. We want
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you in our tournament. But if you, but if you play in the big 12, you don't get that, you don't
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have that liberty. Yeah, it's confusing. And you're right. It's just a logo's games. But so,
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so West Virginia, DJ, this is again, I just want to, I want to detail how absurd this is. They are
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18 and 13, Auburn is 16 and 15 West Virginia in the big 12. They ended up finishing on the top
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half of the big 12 conference this year. And they're going into the big 12 tournament with a buy.
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Auburn was seven and 11 in SEC play. Again, we're talking about Auburn team. It's above West
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Virginia and going to March madness, net ranking West Virginia, even the net is still hovering
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around where the bubble is. I would, I even bigger question, by the way, because for some reason,
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Auburn is 38. The net both of these teams are top five. They have five quad wins. Auburn and
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West Virginia both have the same number of quad five wins or quad one wins. I should say with five,
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I don't get how their net disparities there. And it raises a bigger question. When we weight
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these things, net, strength of schedule, RPI, college football is the same way, DJ. When we
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weight those things, we weighed it because Alabama was number three to start the year. So Florida
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state beat the number three team of the country. Did they actually, now they beat the number 12
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team of the country. And then we give Virginia props for beating the number 11 team of the country.
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Was Florida state really the number 11 team of the country? No, of course they weren't. But because
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the way net works, because the way the ESPN strength of schedule works, guess what? We only count what
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you did and how good they were at the time, even though it's a completely absurd way to, you know,
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LSU gets a ton of credit for beating Clemson. Why? They both sucked. But for some reason,
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these algorithms are built so that, oh, if you play in the SEC and you are perceived to be a good
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team before you even play the snap of football, we're going to give our basketball. We're going to
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give you the benefit of the doubt. That's a broken system. We don't want NIL being broken. The
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portal being broken. There's a lot broken to how we're handling college football and college
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basketball from a resume standpoint that needs to be reformatted needs to be studied needs to be
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changed. Talk about how good the big 12 is. Do you want to try and give some hope that West Virginia
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could reel off a few wins in this thing and maybe play their win? I'm not saying, obviously,
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that's not even the point that I'm making because then obviously they'd be in. But are there
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enough wins to be had against quality teams in the big 12 tournament for the mountaineers?
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Yeah. I think BYU will knock off Kansas State in the first game on Tuesday. And then after
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that one, I think West Virginia, who just beat BYU has a leg up on the Cougars. They should be
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able to beat BYU again. And we already know the Cougars are getting into the NCAA tournament.
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So West Virginia winning that is going to give them a further boost. Then they run into Houston.
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And the only way they're beating Cougars, as if the Cougars decide, hey, we need rest. We need,
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let's get, let's react. Let me before we go into March Madness, we don't need the big 12 tournament.
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Or if West Virginia, let's just say, has a hot shooting day and they knock off the Cougars,
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dang. Now you're playing probably Kansas in the semi-final. I know Kansas wins a lot in the
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big 12 tournament, but I don't mind that for West Virginia, Darren Peterson, Saga as that
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continues to unfold. I don't mind that matchup for WVU. They need to get through Houston.
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I'm getting through BYU is no easy task, but you win one of those games. You win both of those
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games. You should squarely be in that conversation. And I don't, you know, TJ, somebody told me,
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an ESPN employee told me they said the reason Joe Lennarty puts teens where he puts them is he
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knows the rooting interest of that room. It's what's going to sway this thing. It's bubble-cutting
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hand was in there last year in North Carolina got in. He's the UNCAD who ran the thing.
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If that's the case, the the room is they're human. They're going to air on the side of their
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friends. Oh, my friend is the AD at Santa Clara. My friend is the the AD at Auburn. I love Bruce
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Pearl. He's my best friend from high school. They're going to let those teams in because of
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their personal rooting interests. That's why Lennarty's leaving West Virginia out. He knows that room.
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He knows that room is not going to favor a mountaineer's team. It's deserving.
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Need a couple of wins from WVU starts today. This comes out on Tuesday. So go get it done. What
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can people do to follow you and find your work, Drake? Yep. At Locked on Big 12, wherever you find
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your podcast at Drake's eTolls show on Twitter, hit follow, hang out, come for partially good
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takes. Sometimes. Appreciate you, man. Always fun, T.J.