TODAY’S TALKER

Latest conference shuffle could benefit Big 12 basketball

Kansas basketball coach Bill Self was so disgusted by the last round of conference realignment — when Missouri and Texas A&M bolted the Big 12 for the SEC — he vowed never to play the Tigers again.

It didn’t matter that the Border War had been one of the best rivalries in college sports.

Self ’s reason was simple: The departures, along with Nebraska’s move to the Big Ten and Colorado’s to the Pac-12, had left the Big 12 on precarious footing. Why continue with a treasured series with the league’s very existence on shaky ground?

The most recent round of conference realignment didn’t strike in Self nearly the same nerves. Perhaps because the Big 12 may have come out ahead — at least, when it comes to basketball.

Sure, the league will lose marquee names when Texas and Oklahoma leave for the SEC, but the football prowess of those two schools has historically outpaced their basketball pedigree.

To replace them, the Big 12 is adding Houston, Cincinnati and Central Florida from the American Athletic Conference and BYU from the West Coast. The Bearcats have been to six Final Fours and delivered two national titles, Houston’s been to two title games and just went to the Final Four last season, and the Cougars are now a perennial NCAA tourney team.

“I think there was more concern in 2011, maybe because it was new, maybe because I was more involved,” said Self, who finally relented and allowed the Jayhawks to schedule a game against Missouri this season. “This time I wasn’t. I kind of felt like this time somehow it’d work out, it’d be figured out.”