I swear I didn’t know any Hawaii/MWC/Big West deal was in the works when, on Wednesday, the day before news broke of Hawaii’s likely defection, I posted my article, “Is Denver too excited about joining the WAC?” But the Hawaii news certainly makes that post look unexpectedly prescient. In it, I wrote:
[A] conference must have six core members, who have been together for at least five years, in order to qualify as a recognized, NCAA-sanctioned conference. Drop below six core teams, and things like automatic bids to the NCAA Tournament start disappearing. So if the WAC loses even a single additional team — such as Hawaii, which has mused openly about going independent… — it’s toast. …
[E]ven after the additions of UTSA, Texas State and Denver, the six-core-team problem still remains. Barring a waiver of some sort from the NCAA in the event of losing another core member, the WAC won’t be completely “safe” from potential destruction due to other conferences’ poaching until 2017-18, when the new teams will become five-year core members. In the current expansion climate, that’s a loooong time.
I asked Benson last Thursday whether there were any plans to introduce a new exit penalty like the short-lived $5 million agreement that Nevada and Fresno violated in August. He didn’t answer directly, but the gist of his response appeared to be: no. So, teams will remain free to leave.
And the WAC will probably need to hold itself together without much prospect of extra revenue from BCS bids in football, and perhaps with a less friendly TV deal at some point. … Which, of course, only increases the chances that some teams might be tempted to look elsewhere if the opportunity arises, thus jeopardizing the WAC’s very survival as a conference.
There is a way Denver could have avoided the uncertainty of being in a conference sitting perpetually on the edge of a precipice: they could have joined the WCC instead. … But the WCC is evidently happy to remain at nine teams for now, and Denver wasn’t going to stay put and let the opportunity offered by the WAC — undeniably an improvement over the Sun Belt — pass it by. So they made the jump, and understandably so. Now they just have to cross their fingers that the center holds for the next seven years.
The center didn’t even hold for 24 hours after I wrote that. Amazing.
It’s unclear what will happen now. Hawaii’s departure isn’t even official yet, and I haven’t read any analysis of the six-core-teams issue, or whether the NCAA would be likely to grant a waiver. [UPDATE: WAC commissioner Karl Benson “expects the NCAA to reexamine the rules on continuity of membership.” And Kyle Whelliston opines, “I wouldn’t worry about being shut out on an AQ. Based on history, the NCAA has been more lenient with leagues who present expansion plans, and especially so with established leagues.”]
Worst-case scenario, Denver, UTSA and Texas State will be joining a league that won’t have an NCAA auto-bid for the first five years they’re in it. In which case, I imagine they would re-think their plans of joining, and the WAC would simply die. In that case, if the WCC still doesn’t want Denver, would the Sun Belt take them back?
Stay tuned.
I have to think the Karl Benson has some other options to explore if Hawaii leaves. He could look at raiding some Big Sky schools, or perhaps some western Sun Belt schools like North Texas or in Louisiana, although Benson and Wright Waters, the SBC Commissioner are good friends.
In hoops, he can certainly add Seattle and Utah Valley State tomorrow if he needs them.
Yeah, but none of that solves the “six core teams together at least five years” problem. Nothing, except an NCAA waiver (or a decision by one of the departing teams to return), can solve that.
Everyone seems to be assuming the NCAA will grant a waiver, and maybe they will. But the NCAA doesn’t always behave rationally, or do what it seems like they obviously should. And what if Louisiana Tech and/or Utah State jump ship before the waiver decision is made (which is presumably a ways down the road — it’s a bureaucracy, after all)? A conference with 4 or 3 core members is skating on awfully thin ice, even if the NCAA is predisposed to grant a waiver.
On another note, Wright Waters is a great name.