Exposing the Lies of College Basketball

Recently, I was looking through the ESPN men's basketball standings page to see each team's record all on the same page. I was startled at what I found.

Perhaps, you're aware that Texas Christian University will be joining the Big East Conference due to their football success. This was the first time I had become aware of the geographical joke that conferences are becoming. Basketball, however, is giving me a whole new perspective on how widespread the issue is. Seeing the teams in these conferences makes me think perhaps we should scrap geographical descriptions for conferences in favor of different adjectives. All teams are welcome in the Superawesome conference. The B1G 10 and Big XII have the idea, but why doesn't someone top them. I would go play for a school in the Massive 10. The chief culprit of these geographical lies is the Great West.

As a conference name, Great West really is one of the better conference names in college basketball. "Great" is obviously better than "Big," which only describes the size of a conference. However, in most cases, "Big" conferences are no bigger than other conferences. In this way, The Great West easily has the Big West one-upped. The name is only beaten by Conference USA, because AMERICA. The USA is better than great. One must delve a little to deeper to see why the Great West is full of liars and cheaters.

I think I got the wrong logo

There, that's better

The following are the basketball schools in the Great West: Utah Valley (well, ok, that's sort of west...it's in the west half of the country), South Dakota (okay, they're pushing it. and there is nothing great about South Dakota), North Dakota (well, if they included South Dakota, they might as well go one state north too), Texas Pan-American (okay, they're all over the place here, but still, it's the Western half), Chicago State (umm...it's....uhh...in the mid-west, right?),  Houston Baptist (ok, now they're just making up schools), New Jersey Institute of Technology (......are you shitting me?)

At Sportswritten, we take things to the next level. I was dissatisfied with being lied to. I went straight to the source. I'll translate.

The Great West Conference is made up of 10 intercollegiate institutions that range geographically from New Jersey to Texas to California.

The  Great West is made up of 10 schools that couldn't find a different conference that wanted them to join.

The 10 member schools are spread out over seven states and four time zones, giving each school added exposure - both in terms of media and recruiting - in new destinations.

These schools are spread apart, making traveling for conference games more expensive than the schools' average athletic budget of $17.42

The conference affiliation also generates much interest within the 10 institutions' substantial alumni base.

The guy who moved away from New Jersey Institute of Technology after college because he hated it can now see his terrible past follow him to Utah, Texas, or wherever else he may try to escape

The conference, which began as a football-only league

It was flag football

Joining the league on July 10, 2008 were Houston Baptist University, New Jersey Institute of Technology, University of North Dakota, University of South Dakota, Texas-Pan American and Utah Valley University. Chicago State accepted the league's invitation to join in October, 2008.   These seven schools joined football only members Cal Poly, UC Davis and Southern Utah University to make up the 10-member league. 

The conference only had 3 teams at one point. We still called it a conference even though a more accurate term would have been "club." Like a book club, the conference was a football club.

Conference competition began on Sept. 4, 2004 with UC Davis scoring a 52-0 win over South Dakota State and Northern Colorado notching a 15-13 win over North Dakota State.

South Dakota State really sucks.

 The Great West Conference recognizes student-athletes on both a weekly and full-season basis. Individual awards include Players of the Week; All-Conference teams; an Academic All-Conference team; and Player, Newcomer and Coach of the Year awards. The league also crowns team champions for both regular season and post-season competition. 

It's like youth soccer, everyone gets a trophy.

When ESPN 30 for 30 does a piece on this travesty, I want you to remember where you heard it first.