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SEC-Big East Challenge ends, Big 12 Conference begins

By on January 29, 2013

SEC-Big_East_Invitational

ESPN’s Adam Katz reported SEC will begin a challenge series with the Big 12 Conference. The Big East-SEC Challenge will not continue due to the changes of the Big East.

1. The Big East-SEC Challenge wasn’t going to continue next season with the changing membership of the Big East. That’s why the SEC had long been in negotiations with the Big 12 for a new challenge, and that challenge will begin in 2013-14. The SEC and Big 12 can coordinate a challenge for the next two seasons because the membership will be unchanged. Overall, the idea of challenges is a good one to drum up support for the conferences and create made-for-TV matchups in late November and December. Forcing these schools to play true home-and-home series helps the sport as well as the power-ratings for the nonconference schedules. The Big Ten-ACC Challenge has been the standard. If there is going to be a new one then I would love to see the Pac-12 look to look east and do one with the Mountain West. The Pac-12 actually would be the conference that would benefit, since lately MWC teams overall have had stronger profiles than Pac-12 schools. Pac-12 and MWC schools play each other (see Arizona’s and UCLA’s schedules) so making the official commitment and creating the competition shouldn’t be an issue.