@BeddieKU23 and @globaljaybird
Two issues need to be kept straight about recruiting.
A. Self's short-term, annual, shifting tactical brilliance at ad hoc work arounds to apparent recruiting regime dynamics that annually deny him a 5-star/OAD freshman signee at the 1 and 5, and appears to be starting to deny him credible D1 (4-star and higher) freshman signees, so that Self appears to be trending toward producing fewer first round draft choices on average than UK, UNC, and Duke, and perhaps contributing to a possible ceiling of the Elite Eight for KU Carney, er, Tourney runs.
B. Self's and KU's long term, strategic problem of not being able to compete on a level, recruiting playing field with UK, UNC, and Duke, at least at the 1 and 5 positions.
We can laud Coach Self for the genius of his short term tactical work arounds, but we must also continue to call attention to the long term strategic problem, or Self and KU are likely to be inexorably marginalized from competing for first National Titles, and then increasingly for conference championships, after KU is forced into junior member status (with concomitant loss in conference political influence) from a move to another Power conference, like the Big Ten.
It is CRUCIAL that KU NOT MOVE into another Power Conference, especially the legacy-intense Big Ten, alone. If it moves alone, it will be doomed and KU Basketball dominance will within a very short time be consigned to ash heap of D1 history. Why?
Think about what has happened to two dominant basketball school's athletic programs that jumped conferences: Syracuse, Louisville. The move to a new conference leaves them essentially junior members in conferences that will no longer fight to protect them from subversion. The other member schools in the new conference do not NEED the newcomer, no matter how good it is. In fact, the legacy schools are better off if the newcomer is brought down a notch, so as not to upset the legacy alliances and order, as much.
And what immediately befell them? Both were immediately clocked for wrong doing that was, perhaps, kind of a way of life for them elsewhere, and for which they were once apparently enabled due their relatively greater importance in rank at prior conference stops.
Compare what happened to Syracuse and Louisville in their new home--the ACC, with what happened to long-time ACC member UNC. At the rate things appear to be going in the Easygate case, UNC might be handed a middling infraction for compromising a substantial portion of entire degree granting institution of higher education, in, oh, say, about the same century JFK and 9-11 are fully declassified. LIKE MAYBE NEVER!
Loyal, but in my view, perhaps somewhat naive KU fans will probably respond that KU is no Syracuse, or Louisville. KU tries to do it the right way and so has nothing to worry about in a move to, say, the Big Ten. No skeletons in KU's closet, they will think and write. I wish that trying to do it the right way were enough to protect KU basketball from predators after a change of conference. But I strongly doubt that it will be.
Amateurism in college basketball has long made D1 an imperfect sports business, where many that have commented in investigative articles, or books, indicate that it is a place where most bend rules, and the difference between the good guys and the bad guys is probably a matter of who is trying to do it the right way, and who is NOT even trying.
As MSU's Jud Heathcote was reported once to have said after his retirement in a book about basketball recruiting I have mentioned, many times, but which title escapes me this morning, back in Heathcote's career, it used to be routine for veteran coaches to order new, young assistant coaches, to engage in recruiting activity that explicitly broke NCAA rules, as an initiation into the coaching profession, so that the new young assistants were compromised and understood the code of professional silence on rules that were violated routinely by all programs, good, or rogue. There has never been any credible evidence presented that D1 basketball has been systematically cleaned up since Heathcote's time. If anything, recruiting behavior in D1 has probably mutated in the way in which rules are bent and broken, in an era of fantastically more money involved, and it at least appears that the NCAA has loosened, rather than strengthened its policing of recruiting.
So: what am I trying to say?
KU may be the cleanest run program in D1, but the probability is, given the long, sordid history of D1 basketball recruiting, that would merely make KU the lepper with the most fingers, when it moved to a new power conference.
And in a new power conference, KU would be a nice budgetary addition to the new conference's bottom line and some expansion in politic influence in the political alliance regional political economy that sports conferences are analogs of.
But on the level of sports competition, it just wouldn't matter much to the new conference, if KU basketball were successful, or not. KU rarely wins a national championship. KU now appears destined rarely to reach a Final Four, if apparent current recruiting regime dynamics are sustained. Thus, KU's value to, say, the Big Ten, would not reside in KU winning conference titles, displacing legacy members upper level finishes in conference and in NCAA births, and generally remaining a force in college basketball. Mostly KU's value to the Big Ten would be:
a.) cherry picking KU would weaken the Big 12 and leads to its dissolution, thus allowing the Big Ten TV market to expand into the void and up TV revenues for conference members; and
b.) a new junior revenue generator that would be largely powerless politically in the face of the legacy power alliances within the Big Ten; and
c.) enable the Big Ten states regional political economy alliance to extend political economic influence into infrastructure and regulatory issues and votes in the Great Plains.
And there are probably other political chits that I am not insider enough to recognize.
But the point is: the Big Ten doesn't want KU for its basketball program. If KU were to stay dominant in basketball, well, that would just be icing on the cake. As a result, the Big Ten legacy power schools--Michigan, Ohio State, Michigan State, Wisconsin, and Indiana are NOT going to fall on their swords for KU Basketball...EVER.
If KU moves alone into minority status in a Big Ten division, it will, like Nebraska, be doomed to junior membership in a conference with dominant members strong enough to play last man standing on every significant issue that comes along.
The Big Ten won't be irrationally parochial and mean spirited. They just won't enable KU as much as the Big 12 has, despite its Texas catering.
My idea of a great Big Ten move would be for enough Big 12 teams to jump at once to create one former Big 12 majority division in the Big Ten. That dog would hunt for KU. But going there alone, or with one other member, is like asking to become a permanent pledge in a fraternity house. No thank you.
Rock Chalk!
