There are two issues here. One is, I think, the overwhelming majority of
UVA fans (and college basketball fans, and sports fans) would agree upon, is that the current tournament should not be messed with; that the current product is exciting and compelling, largely because the Cindarellas and underdogs create amazing drama.
But the second issue is whether this is in UVA's best overall interests to break away, and I think it is. Even if the P5 tournament fails to garner the $8B media deal, splitting the pie only among the 65 or so P5 schools (versus 320+ schools, after the NCAA pays for the entire behemoth organization's overhead), would be a massive, massive windfall. That would affect conference alignment significantly, but it would also put more money back to the schools and players in these leagues. Bad for the mid-majors and low majors, but great for UVA.
Remember where Huggins is coming from: WVU went from banging around a once stellar Big East hoops conference that nobody wanted to change, to now spending a lifetime on planes flying back and forth to the midwest and the state of Texas. Now the Big XII conference is ostensibly on life support, even adding UCF, BYU (Morgantown to Provo, no thanks!), Houston, and Cincy, which frankly are a big collective downgrade basketball-wise from OU and Texas. And all of this is happening to him despite the Big XII becoming a premier basketball conference, but unable to pull financial levers to mitigate these football-centric decisions.
I think if the P5 breaks away completely in football, hoops should follow suit while UVA has a seat at the adult table.
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In response to this post by gfhoo)
Posted: 10/21/2021 at 2:21PM