Joe’s Notes: What Don’t Power Conferences Like About Charlie Baker’s Proposal?

Ross Dellenger published a big report today centered around either the soft split between the SEC & Big Ten and the ACC & Big 12 or the soft split between those four leagues and the rest of Division I. There are a number of important anecdotes. Those are not the ones getting all the attention.

Dellenger mentions NCAA Tournament expansion in there, and we don’t mean to imply that he’s lying or anything about it being discussed. He gives a date (January 25^th) on which Power Five commissioners talked with Charlie Baker about the prospect of growing the field. But while NCAA Tournament expansion is certainly on power conferences’ radar, and definitely might happen soon, it’s a small deal compared to the two bigger fish these leagues are trying to fry.

The first of those fish is the 12-team College Football Playoff, whose 6-automatic bid structure, one designed to give five seats to Power Five champions, has already become outdated with the dissolution of the Pac-12. What do we learn from Dellenger? Maybe this is old news to others, but it was new to me that Kirk Schulz, Washington State’s president, is among those who’d need to unanimously approve a pivot to five automatic bids for these next two years. Others who need to sign off include one school president from each of the Group of Five leagues. It has to be unanimous. Those presidents have something to lose, sure. They could always get entirely boxed out of the next round by the big boys. But it’s conceivable, to me at least, that they’d hold their ground. To be fair, the ACC, the Pac-12, and the Big 12 behind Oklahoma and Texas have all struggled enough that when the 6-automatic bid structure was announced, a lot of us theorized about two bids ending up with the Group of Five anyway.

The second is about Baker’s proposal for changes to NCAA governance, the one we were so excited about in December. Per Dellenger, that proposal is being called ‘Project DI.’ Per Dellenger, Project DI is “a concept with which the power leagues took issue.”

Dellenger doesn’t expound much on what the power conferences don’t like about Baker’s proposal, but he does offer this:

“The first portion of the proposal — permissive school-to-athlete NIL pay — is on a fast track for potential adoption as soon as August. However, Baker is expected to re-examine the subdivision portion of the proposal and presumably re-introduce a modified version, according to those with knowledge of the plan.”

What don’t the power conferences like about the subdivision idea? We’re not sure. Is it the existence of such a subdivision? Is it that the “enhanced educational trust fund” is too expensive? Is it that the “enhanced educational trust fund” is not expensive enough, and they’re worried Loyola Marymount will try to crash their party? We really don’t know. The bottom line, though, and the one that continues to too frequently escape notice, is this:

Division I has gotten very big in recent years. Some of this has been growing schools joining its ranks. Some of it has been shrinking schools or stagnant schools declining to demote themselves to a lower level of athletics. At the center of it, though, we now have a situation where Division I—a designation meant to allow similar schools to compete against one another—is now an extremely broad grouping, one including schools with extraordinarily different needs. It’s hard to find college athlete employment solutions which fit both Alabama and Fairleigh Dickinson. If you were to rebuild college athletics from scratch, Alabama and Fairleigh Dickinson would not be in the same division. But because Alabama’s dramatic growth has happened in little pieces, they can play in the same NCAA Tournament, and now fans are attached to that and don’t want to see it go away. So, what Baker’s team (i.e., the NCAA) has to figure out is how to keep the SEC and Big Ten happy without completely breaking Division I apart. I don’t envy the task.

Where Is Bill Self’s Bench?

Kansas got smoked by Texas Tech last night, and it was understandable and ok. Kevin McCullar Jr. was out, Kevin McCullar Jr. will be back by Selection Sunday, and a selection committee swayed by public perception (the Jayhawks opened the week 6^th in the AP Poll but 14^th in kenpom) and allowed to consider injuries will give KU a higher seed than their raw résumé deserves.

Considering injuries in tournament selection and seeding is a questionable practice. It’s rooted in the right things—injuries shouldn’t be punished—but it’s difficult to handle in a fair manner. Cameron Matthews outranks McCullar on EvanMiya. If Matthews missed time and Mississippi State went down hard against Texas A&M, the Bulldogs would not receive the same benefit of the doubt the Jayhawks can expect regarding last night. Why? Kevin McCullar is a household name in the relevant households—those of the committee. Matthews is not. He’s a great player, and many on the committee know this, but there’s no “Oh, of course, Kevin McCullar was out” that gets applied to players like Cameron Matthews.

Kansas got smoked by Texas Tech last night, and should not have been understandable and ok.

Also: Why does Bill Self not have a bench?

On the broadcast last night, Self (through reporting from Fran Fraschilla) acknowledged this was a shortcoming, and that he’d erred. The report was he’d said something to the effect of, “This won’t happen again.” This issue with that response is that Kansas hasn’t had a bench in five years. Here’s where their bench minutes have ranked, via kenpom, in Division I since 2020, with this year of course still in progress:

What’s especially weird here is that you would think for Kansas, depth is a choice. For Princeton and Indiana State—two of the three teams who rely on their starters the most, and also two of the best mid-majors in the country this year—depth is hard to come by. It’s tough to acquire talent, even if you can identify it. With Kansas? Snoop Dogg once shot a money gun of fake $100 bills across the floor at Allen Fieldhouse during a public scrimmage.

Kansas’s roster is a little thinner this year in terms of scholarship usage than is normal. That’s an accident, something that can happen in a sport with a small number of scholarships and a complicated recruiting system. But the continued tendency by Self to rely on a small number of players—one that seems to have peaked last year, not even this year (though McCullar’s injury has necessitated more Nick Timberlake)—seems to point towards a struggle not with scholarship number oddities but with talent identification, talent development, or some combination of the two. Timberlake is a prime example: He was supposed to contribute. Instead, he clearly doesn’t have Self’s full trust.

Surely, Self will figure this out, but it takes more than five guys to win in college basketball. In the meantime, Kansas would be smart to milk this McCullar injury and keep winning at home.

The Rest

College basketball:

• Credit to Texas Tech for their victory, which was not one predicated upon McCullar’s absence. The Red Raiders jumped from 38^th to kenpom to 21^st after the win, but that’s only about a 1.5-point improvement on a per-game basis. The pack is tight.
• Iowa State goes to Cincinnati tonight, and this is a huge one for the Big 12 regular season championship dream. Cincinnati is a bubble team that’s much better than a bubble team and should expect to play its way off the bubble. Unfortunately for the Cyclones, this is a prime opportunity for them to do that.
• Marquette has a dangerous road game at Butler. Mississippi’s visit to Rupp Arena will be closely watched. The Mountain West has more good action, as is so often the case.

The NBA:

• The Knicks lost to the Rockets on what the refs ultimately said postgame was a bad call, and it was not the only controversial whistle. Kirk Goldsberry and Ryen Russillo, two guys who know the NBA a lot better than I do, are leaning into this being a product of Adam Silver’s NBA making things easier for offense. I’d still argue that the overall scoring increase has more to do with the generational shifts surrounding the three-point shot, but it’s telling that people who unabashedly love the NBA are so frustrated with NBA officiating.
• The Bucks got a big win over the Nuggets, bringing their record since the coaching change up to 3–5. Ultimately, for a team like the Bucks who knows they’ll be in the mix, seeing their ceiling seems more important at this stage than winning consistently.
• Victor Wembanyama blocked ten shots in a triple double performance against the Raptors. So that’s neat.
• The Timberwolves put together a monster second half to pull away from the Clippers, holding onto first place in the Western Conference.
• Good ones tonight between the Heat and Bucks, the Kings and Suns, and in a very fun development the Thunder and Magic.

Chicago, and more Iowa State:

• Ayo Dosunmu had a big night in what was, in seriousness, a big game in the race for 9^th place in the Eastern Conference. In this case: While we can’t have what we want, we will want what we could still possibly have
• The Blackhawks are up against the Canucks tonight, but it’s in Chicago, and while it could go poorly, they’ve at least got Connor Bedard’s return to look forward to. He’s evidently got a doctor’s appointment on Monday that’s expected to be the final checkbox on his return. It would take a setback for him to not be on the ice next week, either Wednesday in Philadelphia or Friday back home against Patrick Kane and the Red Wings (with Chris Chelios’s number retirement ceremony beforehand).
• T.J. Tampa has been invited to the NFL Combine. He’s the only Iowa State player on the list.

Two more:

• The hearing for the lawsuit between the states of Tennessee & Virginia and the NCAA over enforcing NIL rules happened today. The judge, Clifton Corker, said he’ll rule soon on whether or not to grant the states their requested preliminary injunction. This was not a trial, if I understand the legal system correctly, but it was a hearing. My impression is that Judge Corker’s denial of a temporary restraining order came in the wake of only written arguments, not an in-person, verbal hearing. My impression is also that a trial could still happen following the injunction of lack thereof, if neither party backs down.
• The Giants signed Jorge Soler last night, taking the best remaining non-Boras option off the board. It’s a fine pickup for the Giants—maybe a slight overpay—but the big news is that something happened. Maybe it breaks the logjam, maybe the logjam breaks on its own soon, maybe the logjam doesn’t break for a long time. (I don’t think Soler signing is going to affect those four guys, but it could conceivably spark some other movement.)