Big 12 a hoops juggernaut soon to include CU Buffs – Boulder Daily C…

KANSAS CITY — Football drives conference realignment. Everybody knows that.

That was the case more than a decade ago, when the first round of major conference upheaval sent, among others, Colorado to the Pac-12, Nebraska to the Big Ten, and Missouri and Texas A&M to the SEC.

That hasn’t changed, as football pays almost everyone else’s bills in major college athletics. But in the Big 12 Conference, CU’s former home that will welcome back the Buffaloes next year, the message from commissioner Brett Yormark has been clear.

Hoops matters. A whole heck of a lot.

While many of Colorado’s Pac-12 peers along the West Coast chased football dollars in conferences with thick imprints in the Eastern time zone, the Buffs returned to familiar turf in their former home in the Big 12.

Not that the Buffs or any of the Big 12’s other newcomers (Houston, UCF, BYU and Cincinnati this year; CU, Arizona, ASU and Utah next year) aren’t glad for the football bucks as well. CU stands to reap $31.7 million annually via the Big 12’s media rights agreement with ESPN and FOX. That will be a huge, department-changing windfall compared to the $20.8 million CU has collected as part of the Pac-12.

Still, a college basketball blueblood like UCLA might not have been completely dismissing its marquee sport in its program’s pending move to the Big Ten. But the repeated trips three time zones east won’t do the Bruins any favors. In the Big 12, basketball isn’t getting relegated to the same secondary status as soccer and volleyball.

“We’ve doubled down on basketball for all the right reasons through expansion,” Yormark said during his media session at the Big 12 women’s media day on Tuesday. “I’m very bullish on our future.”

It’s a matter of when, not if, college football moves to a model in which the best of the best forms its own super-conference separate from the remainder of NCAA athletics. That process already is well underway. At the same time, the NCAA men’s basketball tournament remains the most significant source of revenue for the NCAA. What football is to the programs and surrounding communities of the SEC, that’s what basketball means to large swaths of the Midwest and East Coast. The Buffs are primed to be part of that excitement.

The Buffs aren’t even in the Big 12 yet, and Yormark has proven to be the anti-Larry Scott/George Kliavkoff. Yormark was aggressive in conference expansion while Scott stood pat when the Pac-12 had the opportunity to do the same. And with Yormark’s focus on expanding the Big 12’s mantle as the top men’s basketball conference in the nation, the league is positioned to lead the way when collegiate athletics evolves to the point where men’s basketball gets its own separate media rights deals. That day probably isn’t too far in the distance.

All 10 of the Big 12’s teams last year finished in the top 70 of the NET rankings. Among this year’s conference newcomers, three of the four finished in the top 70, with Houston at the No. 1 spot and BYU, the only program outside the top 70, landing at a respectable No. 84. With perennial power Arizona and the Buffs, typically competitive under head coach Tad Boyle, joining next year, CU will be ensconced in the first super conference for men’s basketball. And that’s with the Big 12 reportedly still in pursuit of Gonzaga.

Boyle’s clubs generally have thrived at CU despite playing second fiddle in resources and priorities to the football program, even though the football product has been mostly awful during that time. Men’s basketball may not elevate to equal ground in the Big 12. But it will be a heck of a lot closer.

Colorado’s Luke O’Brien recently lamented to me that if there’s something he’ll miss with his planned exodus from Boulder after this season, it’s the opportunity to play in front of frenetic, jam-packed arenas every night as opposed to the sparsely-attended affairs that typically greet the Buffs on Pac-12 road trips. The Buffs, and their fans, should be stoked to be part of that frenzy.

“He’s driven by a mission to do his job as a commissioner better than any other commissioner in the country,” Oklahoma State coach Mike Boynton said. “I think his mindset is ‘We love basketball, and we can be the best basketball conference, far and away.’ When you talk about adding the teams we added this year, the teams we’re going to add next year, I think the separation is becoming even wider in a league that’s already been the best certainly in the six years that I’ve been the head coach.

“Going to get better. The rumor’s out there he’s still being aggressive in the market. I commend him. Just a couple years ago, we weren’t sure what the league would look like. Now we’ve got a team like Houston coming in, who’s got a Hall of Fame coach and a national championship contender. We’ve got a team like Arizona, who’s historically been great. I think it’s great for everybody. Competition makes you better.”