NCAA Basketball: Examining 10 potential moves in conference realignment
By Joey Loose
Memphis to Big 12
Four teams were added to the Big 12, with three of them coming from the AAC, part of the Group of 5 conferences. The move made sense from a football perspective, as Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF have each had some pretty amazing seasons recently that saw them with little chance of making the College Football Playoffs. However, the AAC is now greatly weakened, and it makes you wonder if Memphis could follow suit and find their way into a new conference.
With Memphis unlikely to join the Big East, the Big 12 actually makes a ton of sense for the Tigers. They make sense geographically and have had solid success in both basketball and football in recent years. Their football team would join those others in sliding in nicely with the Big 12, even if they can’t replace the accolades of Oklahoma and Texas. On the basketball side, the Tigers have been trending in a positive direction these last couple of years and could absolutely do some damage in a rebuilt Big 12.
The biggest question is what it would take for the Big 12 to add Memphis. They weren’t among the four teams the conference just added, left behind in the AAC with a few other strong programs. Would the Big 12 need to lose a team like Kansas or Oklahoma State for the conference to make another move? If the conference acts proactively, would they turn towards Memphis or another AAC program to boost their numbers again?
On the court and on the gridiron, Memphis makes sense in the Big 12, it’s just a matter of making it happen, especially if the AAC can’t boost its numbers.