What is it with these names (Big 12 and Big Ten)

One of the strangest and for some people like myself very annoying names when it comes to college conferences are the Bigs. What I mean by that are the Big Ten and Big 12 so why I am so annoyed by these names, seems decent, right ?

Well the problem is that the Big 12 Conference has 10 members and the Big Ten conference has 12 members!
Of course nobody can predict how many members it will have in the long run but that is one thing one has to consider when forming something like that!

Of course now changing the name is somewhat problematic but it can really become confusing when you think about it, about the only useful way to know the difference between the two are the locations. You can't know the difference when it comes to members because those change all the time as well but thanks to the location you can be pretty sure which is which.

The Big 12 conference is located in Central US while the Big Ten is located in the Midwestern part of the States. Members of the Big 12 conference are located in Texas, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas and Oklahoma.

The Big Ten (or is it 12, see how confusing this is?) is also the oldest college athletic conference in Division I. It has become a 12 member conference since Penn State joined in 1990 and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln joined in 2011.

Hopefully by the time the 2012 Big 12 basketball tournament bracket is out a new team will be added to one of those conferences so that it at least isn't vice versa when it comes to the number of members. If one of them had 11 members at least they could be easily distinguished from one another.

Upcoming Big East Changes

In 2011 it was announced that the Big East is considering expanding 12 schools into the football conference and Commissioner John Marinatto has already started discussions with the schools in question. This expansion is the first in 3 years since the expansion of 2009.

TCU made a format statement that they will accept the invitation into the Big 12 which means that they only have six football teams and that they are in real need of rebuilding their membership to increase. Another school that is very likely to get accepted into the Big East is the UCF which according to sources IS being seriously considered.

There have also been rumors that Memphis and East Carolina are among the candidates to be accepted into the Big East. The thing is before accepting more teams the conference first wants to see if they will get a format Yes from the Texas A&M because if they do they won't be adding more teams but if they don't they will be on the lockout for another strong team.

The Big East is also a noteworthy basketball conference being the longest running conference in college basketball and having twelve teams until 2009 when it was expanded to 16.

For those of you who aren't die hard college basketball fans here is an interesting fact. The Big East is the only college basketball conference that had all of its games broadcast on national TV and even got a 3D broadcast starting with 2011.

If you're really excited about the upcoming 2012 Big East basketball tournament bracket keep a close watch on our site, we will have the first brackets online!