Utah and Colorado to the Pac 10, Arkansas Stays Put

So I haven’t had much to say about the conference expansion but now that Utah has been extended an offer to join the Pac 10 and Colorado has already accepted, I really felt like writing a thing or two about it. You may be wondering what does this have to do with Kentucky? Well not much directly, but in a round about way any movement in the major conferences will affect Kentucky. This certainly increases the number of bowls that will be extended to Pac 10 schools as Utah will likely get a bid every year. Additionally this could increase the number of bids that the Pac 10 gets to the NCAA tournament thus taking another at-large bid off the board. Arkansas staying in the SEC keeps the number of teams in the conference even thus keeping the numbers in the North and South of the conference equal.
These things only affect Kentucky in the most minimal way at the end of the day really. So now I’ll tell you the real reason I want to write about this. Though I am originally from Ashland and I am currently proudly enrolled in UK’s MBA program, I mostly grew up in Colorado where I graduated from Air Academy High School. Additionally I spent ten years in Utah where I graduated from Utah State before finally returning to Kentucky a year ago. So you can imagine I feel a certain connection to Utah and Colorado athletics. My brother actually graduated from Utah or as they call it in Utah, “the U”.
I must say that I’m pretty excited about this. Boise State leaves the WAC where they have dominated my alma mater for several years, the U leaves the Mountain West where they have competed with BYU for the conference championship in both football and basketball every year and Colorado leaves a conference where they have been pummeled of late after having strong teams in the nineties.
I see Utah doing very well in the Pac 10 which is really a USC and everyone else football conference and a UCLA/Arizona and everyone else basketball conference. Utah adds instant increased credibility to this conference. Utah adds a little more credibility to their resume at the end of the year when NCAA tourney time comes around. Utah should get higher seeds and more at-large bids. All the better for Kentucky as they have a tendency to meet (beat) Utah year after year in the NCAA tournament. Those are usually good years for UK, the most reason victory coming in 2004 when UK went to the Elite 8. Of course we all remember 1998. Very good year. My brother has been crazy all day over this. His allegiance to the U is second only to UK. Personally as a Utah State graduate and more of a BYU fan myself, I’m kind of happy for Utah, but also kind of not happy as Utah is a rival school for both Utah State and BYU. The reality is really that in Utah, Utah State is kind of like Western Kentucky. They’re third behind Utah and BYU so you can really root for the other two if you like.
As far as Colorado goes, I see this as really good for them, a team I also root for. I was in middle school when Colorado beat Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl for a share of the national title in 1991 after losing to Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl the previous year. Also in the nineties Colorado had one really good basketball team led by one Chauncey Billups that beat Indiana in the first round of the 1997 NCAA tournament. Since the nineties however Colorado has had very limited athletic success. I feel that they will compete much better in the Pac 10 which is a weaker basketball and football conference than the Big 12. So, good for Colorado as well.
The Big 12 instantly becomes very much a basketball conference as well as Texas and Kansas are good every year, at least one of the Oklahomas is good every year, by the way, I lived there too, so I’m happy to see them play well, and even , Kansas State, Baylor and Texas A&M have done well of late. The Big 12 (10) as it stands right now is as strong as any conference in the country top to bottom where basketball is concerned.
Anyway, apparently good things are happening for every team in every place that I have lived. I moved to Lexington last year and Kentucky was vastly improved. So the way I see it, I am every program’s good luck charm.
I’m happy for Utah and Colorado, but really at the end of the day, go Cats.

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