Big Ten appears to close the door on Mizzou

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Missouri’s chance of receiving an offer from the Big Ten Conference appeared to slam shut this afternoon when Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe said there weren’t any other Big 12 members “being pursued by the Big Ten at this time.”
But MU athletic director Mike Alden told The Star that he is not ready to close the door on the Big Ten.
“We don’t have knowledge of that,” Alden said. “To me that certainly is speculative, that deal. I appreciate the commissioner saying what he said. But we don’t know that to be accurate or not.”
Beebe made his comments on a national teleconference after Nebraska announced it was joining the Big Ten. Beebe said he spoke earlier in the day with Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany and Beebe said he believed the Big Ten was done shopping in the Big 12.
Delany, speaking later in the afternoon at a news conference in Lincoln, Neb., said the Big Ten will adhere to its original timetable when it comes to further expansion possibilities.
“We’re going to pause,” Delany said as he was welcoming the University of Nebraska to his conference on Friday.
In December, the conference said the process would take 12-to-18 months, but the Cornhuskers were fast-tracked.
The Big Ten may not be finished growing after adding the Cornhuskers as its 12th member. Delany said his conference won’t sit idly by if there are other changes in the college sports landscape.
“We’re still open, we’re aware of what’s going on,” Delany said. “Change won’t abate anytime soon.
“But we’re in a great place. We’re stronger today than we were yesterday.”
Earlier in the day, University of Missouri system president Gary Forsee increased his level of rhetoric in assuring that Missouri will not be left without an equitable position in the changing landscape of major college athletics.
Forsee and other MU officials also took issue with the notion — as one questioner put it — that Mizzou may have “started the hillside on fire” in so quickly responding to the Big Ten’s expansion announcement last December.
“I don’t think that would be accurate,” Forsee said during a news briefing at which he and Board of Curators chairperson Judy Haggard fielded questions.
“Trace chapter and verse. That would be very inaccurate.
“The match was the Big Ten talking about expansion. What’s happened since that period of time, if you go back and look at comments made by us or anybody else, we were only doing what you would expect any institution — whether you’re sitting here or in Lawrence, Kansas, or Waco, Texas.
“Did we contribute more or less than any other institution in the Big 12 or nationally? No. I think we’ve all been caught up in now this national discussion that certainly has spread beyond the Big Ten, and the Big 12 is certainly in the middle of that.”
After Nebraska’s exit to the Big Ten was on, Nebraska president Harvey Perlman reminded his regents that Nebraska wasn’t the first to be associated with Big Ten expansion, pointing out Missouri and Colorado.
“Early on, after the Big Ten announced it was considering expansion, officials at Missouri said they wanted to go to the Big Ten, including statements by their governor with comments that were not clearly supportive of the Big 12,” Perlman said. “Colorado has always been mentioned as poised between the Pac-10 and the Big 12.”
Alden, aware of Perlman’s comments, later spoke even more forcefully to that issue in terms of Missouri’s expansion stance causing rifts within the Big 12.
“I’ve heard that suggestion out there,” Alden said. “And I would tell you, that’s ridiculous. That is silly.”