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- Realignment's officially here
Realignment's officially here
Conferences send out welcomes to schools that moved, including an early greeting from the ACC. Plus, the latest transfer and recruiting news to know.
The first of July marked the end of the Pac-12 (probably), some (not all) new teams in the Big Ten, Big 12 and the SEC, not to mention all the other individual moves you may have forgotten.
Let’s dive into all that and the latest college basketball news.
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1. You’ll stare at this map for a while
The Power 6 became the Power 5 yesterday. Such is life without the Pac-12.
(Well, almost. SMU officially joined the ACC yesterday, but the other Pac-12 schools don’t switch until Aug. 2. But when conferences are sending out welcome notices, it’s safe to say the schools are in.)
College sports still has (some) of its regional and local rivalries, but now that the Big Ten and ACC are bi-coastal conferences, it’s helpful to have a map for a visual representation of how everything looks for the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Big East and SEC now.
![](https://media.beehiiv.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=scale-down,format=auto,onerror=redirect,quality=80/uploads/asset/file/369d1d86-29e9-405b-b518-d2c855ab6318/image.png?t=1719842708)
The ACC counties are wild. It’s not just the Northern California section, but also spots in North Texas in addition to the existing pockets around Notre Dame, Louisville, and the rest scattered along the Eastern seaboard. No wonder it covers the largest population base.
The SEC has the smallest population footprint, but the most counties. That expansion into Texas and Oklahoma was larger than the geographic footprint.
The Big 12’s four new schools basically means adding 2½ states. Lotta counties, though.
The Big Ten looks like one of the railroad sections in Ticket to Ride that got cut off by rude players. Maybe there’s a small section in Montana and Nevada that can have so it can stretch from coast to coach in one random line?
Can’t wait to see this map when the Big East adds Gonzaga one day.
2. The non-Power 5 movers
Realignment isn’t only for the Power 5 conferences. Football conferences got most of the attention yesterday since those seasons kick off next month, but there are plenty of college hoops-centric conferences that welcomed new members yesterday.
The Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference got in on the helpful map updates.