USC and UCLA leaving PAC 12 for the Big Ten

I heard Kirk Herbstreit being interviewed on this the other day. His view was that the Big 10 and the SEC would continue to expand and then go off and do their own thing and break off from the NCAA at least for football. The players will become employees of the colleges and draw a salary. Whether class attendance was part of this or not wasn’t addressed. He said it would be just like the NFL but on Saturdays with the two big conferences essentially being the NFC and AFC.

What leverage does the NCAA have to do that? Zero chance CBS would give the NCAA the billions they've committed to March Madness if they're told that these 40-50 schools are now ineligible.

NCAA has plenty of leverage in this case. If they don't have to pay the defectors/conferences their share, same amount of $ isn't needed, but believe what what you want.

This is actually what I've been wishing all the power conference teams would do for quite a while (in football and basketball). It's been a joke for a long time. As much as I like the first 2 days of March Madness, I can live without that if it means the rest of college basketball will go back to being real college basketball, played by kids that want to be at their schools. I've found the FCS football playoffs to be quite interesting (certainly more interesting than the vast majority of the FBS bowls featuring 6-6 teams squaring off) - I could come to enjoy a similar tournament in basketball.

Same.

The NCAA hoops tourney is all about David vs. Goliath. David vs David and Goliath vs Goliath doesn’t make the cut.

A separation of the tournament makes the lower level D2, D2 becomes D3 and D3 becomes D4. And the new D2 in effect gets as much coverage as the present NIT. Some, but pales in comparison to the top level.

As someone who spends time watching games from conferences like the Big West, Colonial League, Horizon League, etc., I feel pretty certain I wouldn't watch a Goliath vs. Goliath March Madness, and watch the March Top Amateurs tournament instead.

100%. I would watch out-of-town regular season NBA games before I watched an "all P5" March Madness. And no, if the likes of Memphis, Gonzaga and the A-10 were included in that, it wouldn't quench my thirst for seeing a tournament Cinderella.

Watching the NBA Draft last week, who really knew any of those players? 25 years ago, you knew the top players in the college game.

This article points out that ND would stand to make a lot more $ by biting the 'INDE' bullet and joining the B1G - Have to think they're considering it - would they have an exit fee to pay the ACC where their other teams play ?
www.si.com/college/tmg/mark-blaudschun/notre-dame-independence

All a matter of subjective relevance.

I have virtually no interest in these power conferences. If I want to watch the pros, I’ll watch the NFL. As for actual college football, I’m happy with FCS, PL, Ivy, etc.