OK, I’m sick of College Football and all the money-hogging school presidents, ADs and conference commissioners. All of this conference re-aligning is going to ruin college athletics in 10-15 years (amongst other reasons). I’ve been to many college football games and stadiums, but at the FBS level, the politics can be so maddening. The results of all this conference switching, which has been driven by football, is ruining my favorite sport: college basketball. The familiar conference season is in the process of becoming altered for the worse.
So…I’ve done some doodling over the last few weeks and worked on some ideas to re-do the college basketball conferences. I completely ignored football and its implications with these conferences. Instead, I focused on geography, natural rivalries, balancing of schedules (aiming for a home-away game against each team) and similarities in schools. Not everything was able to balance out, but it was fun fantasizing about what could be in the conference portion of Our Game. The same amount of attention was paid to each conference, from the Big East to the Big South. If you have any ideas for improvement, please let me know!
All the results are below, the highlighted teams are those that are in a new conference. Some stats…I made three new conferences: Great Midwest Conference, Gulf Coast Conference and Southwest Conference. Two of those are a blast from the past. Gone is Conference USA and the Great West Conference. Six conferences were good just the way they are: Horizon, Ivy, MEAC, Missouri Valley, NEC and SWAC. Six schools got sent back to Division II or III: Bryant, Elon, Houston Baptist, NJIT, Savannah State and Utah Valley. Only two conference have an unbalanced group of teams: Big Ten (11) and Southern (13). Twenty-five of the conferences allow for a balanced schedule.
Stadium and Arena Visits 
I Love this. Bringing back the old Southwest Conference and Great Midwest are nice ideas. Not sure about trading Notre Dame for Penn State in the Big Ten, based on tradition, however geographically it really makes sense. Plus ND is already rivals with Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue.
I think the two Saint Francis’ could get sent down to Division II or III as well. That would give the NEC a nice and balanced 10 team conference. Loyola is a better fit in there then they were in the MAAC. Mount St. Mary’s is a good partner there when teams make the Maryland trip.