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Think this would be a great basketball conference??

Current AP rankings:

9. A&M
14. TCU
21. Baylor
24. Texas Tech
28. UT (rv - 52)
30. Arkansas (rv - 17)
35. SMU (rv - 6)
40. Houston (rv - 3)

And Rice, well....

Pretty awesome conference. Don't think I can recall a time where this many Texas teams were so highly rated...

Too bad it didn't look like that back in the 90s.

Pretty funny that our last SWC conference regular season title came down to us and Rice. With programs like UT, A&M, Tech, and Houston in the conference but the top of the heap is SMU and Rice, then time to disband the conference because something ain't working.

shadowman wrote:Too bad it didn't look like that back in the 90s.

Pretty funny that our last SWC conference regular season title came down to us and Rice. With programs like UT, A&M, Tech, and Houston in the conference but the top of the heap is SMU and Rice, then time to disband the conference because something ain't working.

This post is using a 2017 lens to examine early 90s SMU reputation. SMU was not Rice.

Unfortunately football drives the bus in most places. The ACC kept its basketball culture despite periodic complaints from Clemson, Georgia Tech and Florida State. But the Big East blew up because big Basketball and football could not co-exist in its model. Thus, West Virginia, Pitt, Louisville, Virginia Tech, Miami, Syracuse, and Boston College all left for greener pastures. The net effect was that their departure watered down the basketball model. Syracuse, Pitt, West Virginia and Louisville were all great hoops programs. And then when the conference backfilled with SMU, Memphis, Tulane, Tulsa and East Carolina the Catholic schools took their toys and left which inflicted some pain on UConn and Cincinnati. Now the new Big East is a mere shadow of its former self. And the ACC with SMU, Houston, Tulsa, Wichita State, Memphis, Temple, UConn, and Cincy is a solid hoops mid major conference. One National Champion and five former Final Four teams.

KInd of scary that we are in 7th place though.

EastStang wrote:Unfortunately football drives the bus in most places. The ACC kept its basketball culture despite periodic complaints from Clemson, Georgia Tech and Florida State. But the Big East blew up because big Basketball and football could not co-exist in its model. Thus, West Virginia, Pitt, Louisville, Virginia Tech, Miami, Syracuse, and Boston College all left for greener pastures. The net effect was that their departure watered down the basketball model. Syracuse, Pitt, West Virginia and Louisville were all great hoops programs. And then when the conference backfilled with SMU, Memphis, Tulane, Tulsa and East Carolina the Catholic schools took their toys and left which inflicted some pain on UConn and Cincinnati. Now the new Big East is a mere shadow of its former self. And the ACC with SMU, Houston, Tulsa, Wichita State, Memphis, Temple, UConn, and Cincy is a solid hoops mid major conference. One National Champion and five former Final Four teams.

Great analysis. Hopefully we keep this conference together and build a strong football brand. You get the feeling that any of us would bolt on the others in two seconds for a better offer. I think the best path is to stay the course and build the brand.