ESPN.com Writer Likes "New" Big 12 Eamonn Brennan, one of ESPN.com's college basketball writers, weighs in on the benefits of a 10-team Big 12 Conference: The new-look Big 12 will only boost the rivalries between top teams like Kansas and Texas. In the process, it will ensure that any regular-season Big 12 champion is one that survived the same balanced schedule as the rest of the league. Throw in the fact that most Big 12 teams seem intent on keeping their nonconference challenges alive, at least for the forseeable future, and the costs to the teams involved -- creating a minefield of potential momentum-crushing losses in both league and non-league play -- should be outweighed by the RPI benefits the league will receive by the end of the season. When other leagues made their football-minded expansion moves last summer, they got bigger. Many of them -- the Big Ten (Nebraska), the Pac-12 (Utah, Colorado), the Big East (TCU) -- also got worse. The Big 12 went in the opposite direction, both in volume and quality. The result should be interesting from January on. http://www.big12sports.com/SportSelect.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=10410&SPID=13131&SPSID=106091 Big 12 football coaches have spent most of the last 15 years complaining about the championship game. They won't have that game to kick around any longer. They also won't get the benefits of the game. The perception of the game has been that it was an unnecessary hurdle to a team's road to the BCS National Championship game. Oklahoma and Texas are elite football schools with long and storied histories. Oklahoma State, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Missouri have had some recent success on the national stage. So, winning the Big 12 Conference, with or without a championship game, should be more than enough to earn conference teams a spot in the BCS title game or a BCS bowl game http://www.tulsaworld.com/sportsext...tid=203&articleid=20110701_203_B1_ITDIDN65223
