During the hoops season, a very efficient way to waste ... I mean ... fill column space or airtime is to discuss what conferences belong in the mid-major and major categories.
So in order to not use this topic during the season, it seems the perfect time to address the mid-major/major gulf as I see it. These lines of demarcation will hold up for exactly one year, if you're wondering (which you likely weren't).
Twenty-five of the 31 Division I conferences are nearly universally concrete in their status; the six BCS conferences, America East, Atlantic Sun, Big Sky, Big South, Big West, Horizon League, Ivy League, MAAC, MAC, MEAC, Northeast, Ohio Valley, Patriot League, Southern, Southland, SWAC, Summit League (formerly Mid-Continent as of July 1), Sun Belt, and West Coast (yes, including Gonzaga).
That leaves us with six leagues to ponder over; the A-10, Colonial, Conference USA, Missouri Valley, Mountain West, and the WAC.
Let's get the easy ones out of the way first.
Colonial Athletic Association
Go back to March 26, 2006. If Denham Brown's shot falls in at the end of overtime for UConn against George Mason in that uber-classic regional final, does any one even think about putting the CAA in any kind of major conference category?
No. You would probably just think of the CAA as a very good mid-major conference, a lot like the MAC.
Sure, Mason's victory to shock UConn brought in millions to the CAA and its schools, but it would be insane to say that the CAA's giant TV markets of Washington, Philadelphia, and New York are giving equal time to it and the Big East.
There's potential there for the CAA to become something greater that a mid-major, and it is a great conference, but it's just not there yet.
Verdict: Mid-Major
Missouri Valley Conference
This is another league that, like the CAA, has earned its way into this conversation based on quality and accomplishment. No less than six teams in the league have been nationally significant at some point in the past two seasons. There is no conference outside of the BCS lot that even comes close to having 60 percent of its teams being prominent in a national way.
Based on the basketball, this conference is completely major. However, the largest markets are Omaha and Wichita. Yes, Kansas City and St. Louis get to see these teams play on TV, but none of the 10 campuses is located in the vicinity of the two cities.
Most of these schools are also on athletic budgets that are about a fifth or a sixth what a common power-conference has at their disposal.
All of these factors make what The Valley has accomplished in this millennium even more special, but it doesn't make the conference anything other that mid-major at heart (but still an amazing conference).
Verdict: Mid-Major
The next two conferences will be linked together forever due to the fact that they used to be one.
Western Athletic Conference
Whenever I see or hear anybody criticizing the Big East's current 16-team configuration for basketball, all I really think is, "The WAC started this crap." And for those three years with the 16-team configuration, the WAC was anything but a mid-major.
In fact, I believe a conference with eight team divisions that were always rotating and had a conference tourney where the finalists, no matter how successful, had to play four games in four days would be correctly characterized as completely mad.
After the Mountain West split, the WAC fell back into a mid-major position, one it had in the years before the 16-team hell. It's a tough thing to describe and I really don't have to words to describe it, but I think it boils down to the fact the nine schools haven't been together that long as a conference.
Whatever the case, the WAC has become a mid-major once again, a characterization that I don't think anyone has any problems with.
Verdict: Mid-Major
Mountain West Conference
When given the chance, I can't help but rip into the Mountain West. In 1996, when the Southwest Conference went belly-up, all of the MWC schools (except TCU) were in the WAC and agreed to have that conference become a confusing 16-team shadow of its former self. Three years later, they wanted out and became the MWC to get a big ESPN deal.
Six years later, they wanted out of the ESPN deal. Ultimately, they had to put their games on networks that reach about half the households of the Worldwide Leader and also started their own network.
Soon, they'll want out of their own deal with their own network. If any of these moves sound like something a mid-major league would do, you and I must not be following the same sport.
Verdict: Major
The final two are the most difficult to decide on. By far.
Conference USA
This is another conference that was birthed out of the demise of the Southwest Conference and a TV deal. To have considered this a basketball mid-major just three years ago (after a six-bid season) would have just been ignorant. Now, it's a question that should be answered.
If Memphis had gone to the Big East, instead of say, South Florida, there would be no question that the new C-USA would be a basketball mid-major. But the one elite program really changes everything.
C-USA slightly resembles what the WAC was after those eight teams left to become the Mountain West. However, two years isn't nearly enough time to make that comparison in a fair way. I also can't shake the feeling that C-USA, as set up now, is a conference that cares more about its football championship game than anything anyone does in basketball.
Maybe a Memphis Final Four trip this year could change that.
Verdict: Still a Major, but it's thisclose.
Atlantic 10
The Atlantic 10 is such an oddball that even Kyle Whelliston, who has been covering mid-majors on his own website for three years and on ESPN.com for two only decided this summer to include the full A-10 as a mid-major (he had previously considered about half the conference as mid-major).
I know Kyle, but I haven't picked his brain about this. Yet.
As I was coming into sports consciousness around the mid-1990s, I can remember watching those great Derek Kellogg and Marcus Camby-led UMass teams demolish, what was in a 7-year-old's mind, a good Atlantic 10. I just can't help but think of those teams when I even try to consider the conference that team was in as a mid-major.
The A-10 has a few teams that are quintessentially mid-major (Dayton, Richmond, St. Bonaventure, Rhode Island). There's also a few that are basically mid-majors in huge cities (Duquesne, Fordham, LaSalle). Then you have the programs that I can't consider anything but major (Charlotte, George Washington, UMass, St. Joe's, Temple, Xavier).
The kicker, though, is that last team of the 14 that make the Atlantic ... uh ... 10: Saint Louis. I will not consider a conference with that kind of ridiculous manifest destiny, if you will, a mid-major.
Verdict: Major
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I'd just like to close this column by giving my prayers to the family of Skip Prosser. I, much like everyone else, was shocked and saddened to hear the news. College basketball is going to miss you, Skip.
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