Gary Parrish

I don't even think it's possible in any other sport.

Maybe, and that's the threat, and that is why you can get people to agree to expand, even if it's not in their best interest, because they can always hold that over your head.

And Matt Garland and I, my colleague at CBS Sports, got into a conversation about this on the Ion College Basketball podcast, and his point, and he might be right, I should be clear, but his point is,

That was always a threat that the SEC and Big Ten would use.

If you don't do this and do it the way we want you to, we can always break away, just us, and sell a tournament to Turner or CBS or ESPN and make way more money without you.

So you better cooperate.

Northlanders says that was always a threat, but they were never going to actually do it.

They wouldn't do it because they wouldn't kill the thing that everybody loves.

And, again, he might be right, but I can totally understand why if you're in the Missouri Valley or the American or Conference USA where you're a little worried about the threat because you're talking about the Big Ten and the SEC.

And if you want to say things like they just would not kill this thing because they know it wouldn't be a popular thing to do, if you're going to stand on that, the next thing you've got to do is tell me what is the thing that they have saved

Even though it can make them more money, even though it could bolster their place in the sport, what is the thing that they've saved just because they thought it was good to save it?

It doesn't exist.

It's not the Big 12.

It's not the Pac-12.

It's not the NCAA tournament at 64.

Every other decision they make,

They don't hold on to tradition.

They don't hold on to anything we care about.

They do what's best for them.

And that's why, even though Norlander might be right, this is the thing they might not could have done.