BoiseStateOfMind

Poor San Diego. They've gone from the tightwad Spanos family to penny-pinching Apsey. Dickey is already our GOAT athletic director. Yes, even better than Gene. What impresses me the most is how much passion and ambition he's brought to the athletic department without crossing the line into UCF-level gimmickry/desperation. Looking at how well Baylor has been run in the post-Briles era, not to mention Houston's resurgence, I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that Dickey is so good at his job since he's learned from some elite athletic departments. If he gets us into the Big 12, just build him a statue right then and there.

Oregon is not on USC's level. All they've done is spend a lot of Nike money in the weakest P5 conference while USC has been down (and they have little to show for it). They're already just a shadow of what they were a decade ago, and if Riley gets USC back on track, they're in trouble. Plus it's only a matter of time before USC/UCLA pull a Texas/OU and leave the PAC behind in the dust, IMO. Can't imagine them putting up with the PAC's stagnation for much longer.

Memphis' plan needed more "panache" because the Liberty Bowl (fairly or unfairly) is perceived as a total dump. Even then, a lot of Memphis fans are upset that they're renovating the LB instead of building a new on-campus stadium, and are worried it might cost them the Big 12 invite.

Meh. This strikes me as shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.

It's not about marketing or fame. NIL is transparently just legalized pay-for-play at this point. Boosters aren't throwing money around because the players are famous, they're doing it so they can be pretend sports owners without actually owning a team, and so they can flex on their rival schools' boosters. Not being famous also doesn't stop college basketball players from having big egos and entitlement complexes. Just look at how Shaedon Sharpe pretty much used Kentucky last season, or Emoni Bates negatively recruiting against his own team, or how that Schierman kid from South Dakota State ended up driving multiple blue bloods away with his ultimatums and having to settle for Creighton.

That's actually stunning. Ouchita Baptist, Lenoir-Rhyne, Northwest Missouri State, Fordham, and Valdosta State had players drafted and not Texas. TCU didn't have anyone drafted either, which is also kind of surprising. Meanwhile, Boise State is now on a 13-year streak of getting at least one player drafted, which is nice. I'm so excited for Shakir on the Bills, even though he should have been drafted way earlier than he was, but at least he's in a great spot.

It really seems like NIL will be more destructive in basketball than football for the same reason why the NBA has far bigger issues with free agency and trade demands than the NFL does (smaller rosters, greater impact of individual stars, bigger egos).

They tried to investigate but couldn't stop laughing when they found out that even cheating wasn't enough to make BYU beat our worst team since the '90s.

He was also supposedly close to signing with the Ravens until his girlfriend ruined the deal by posting a racist tweet about Bisciotti and Ray Lewis (literally the two people who were pushing the hardest to sign Kaep). They're both grifters and Kaep's semi-annual comeback attempts that go nowhere are a key part of the grift.

Even if they did have rules in place, all that would have done is prevented non-P5 schools from competing in the NIL game. It's not like the NCAA would have had any leverage or will to enforce those rules on the power conferences.

This is one area where NIL will make things worse than the old days of under-the-table payments. At least back in the day, players would have had to come up with a basketball-related excuse for quitting on their team. Now everything is purely about money. At this point, college sports might as well just have contracts and be professional leagues instead of this half-in-half-out approach. Granted, going pro will probably be the death knell for college sports, but it really doesn't look like any other outcome is sustainable now that the NIL can of worms has been opened.

Everyone's talking about the impact on football, which is understandable, but how does this not instantly kill all non-revenue sports everywhere except for the wealthiest handful of schools that can still afford to have them? All of a sudden, it feels like this has all shifted from fairly compensating the players to purposely destroying college sports by making them unaffordable for nearly all schools in the country.

Rat Face's retirement tour compared to this is just another clear example of the difference between a malignant narcissist and a normal person. I can't help but notice how many coaches have been stepping away now that the NIL train has left the station.

All this talk of PAC candidates is funny. Those snobs are waiting for someone to airlift Harvard and Yale over to the west coast before they even consider expanding again.

This is all very impressive, and I trust Dickey to get it done.

Memphis is going to get crushed by the NCAA and those other programs are mediocre to bad.

I'm sure Wichita State is thrilled about playing FAU, Rice, and Charlotte every year on top of their existing cupcakes like USF, ECU and Tulane.

While playing some of the nation's worst basketball programs in their glorified high school gyms. Whatever extra money they'd be getting would probably just go towards paying Marshall's buyout anyway, not anything that would help their program right now.

Finally, DePaul fans will have a reason to feel good about themselves. "At least we're not 0-8" will be the new motto in Chicago. In all seriousness, if it's a conference realignment announcement, there's no way it doesn't leak before the press conference. I think it's probably an apparel deal or new facilities, maybe a huge donation.

Hearing about all the coaches that UNLV "almost" hired is like hearing about all the players that Danny Ainge "almost" acquired.

The rest of the WCC is horrible except for St. Mary's, whose mediocrity would fit the MWC like a glove. I would much rather rescue Wichita State from the AAC than add any of the WCC's leftovers.

The Big 12 is still the best conference in college hoops.

Kareem and Jim Brown were all-time greats in their sports and Carlos held a couple world records. Kaep was mediocre at best and already trending down before he became a political activist. Controversial athletes who are historically great at what they do are always going to get more leeway than a backup quarterback who thinks he's the new Karl Marx.

Yes, we're a historic 0-8. Technically that counts as being etched in tournament lore.

We'll see. Scheyer has not proven yet that he can maintain the program longterm. Look at Kevin Ollie - he even won a championship at UConn, but still ultimately turned the Ferrari he inherited from Calhoun into a Ford Pinto. For all we know, Scheyer could be Dook's Kevin Ollie or worse. I know he's got a glitzy recruiting class, but that doesn't guarantee anything and those guys won't keep going to Dook if he doesn't maintain their success.