Make It Permanent: Gonzaga Is Still In Discussions To Join The Big 12, Needs To Happen Right This Second

This has been one of those rumors that has been talked about for like a year now. But now you have the Big 12 commissioner saying the conversations are still ongoing and he likes Gonzaga. Good. Get them in the Big 12. I want it to happen. I hate conference realignment but it's inevitable. We can't go back to the glory days of the 9-team ACC or the old Big East or Colorado and Nebraska in the Big 12.

But nothing about conference realignment makes sense. It sucks that we've lost what makes college sports great. Built-in, geographical, historical rivalries. So if we're going to get weird with it, make this happen. Put Gonzaga in the Big 12. We'll get to watch them in more primetime games. We'll get the marquee matchups everyone wants to watch. We won't have to hear the same old 'do they *really* deserve a 1 seed despite having the resume' talk. 

So give me the best alternative.

An absolutely ridiculous basketball conference. We know the Big 12 is adding BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF. Okay, UCF doesn't really matter in this situation, but still. Gonzaga is losing one of its top-2 opponents in the WCC. I'm also sick of the same conversation about Gonzaga every year. So put them in a loaded basketball conference joining those teams, Kansas, Baylor, Kansas State, TCU, Texas Tech, Iowa State and everyone else.

That's before we even get into possible Pac-12 teams joining. Arizona/Gonzaga? Yep. I'll take that. My only wish is keeping the Big 12 a round robin regular season. It's part of what makes that conference and the Big East great. You get a real regular season championship. Every other conference doesn't matter there because of unbalanced schedules. You can take advantage of only playing certain teams once. 

Just make it happen. Get all the rumors over with and we can move on with this new, weird college sports conferences.