Impact on Miami football strength and other conferences not worth league swap
Men's basketball and football are money-driven, multibillion-dollar enterprises that dominate big-time college athletics. Other sports, with rare exceptions, are irrelevant in the power structure.
Thus the seismic rumblings about the ACC annexing Miami, et al, are surprising, at least from the 'Canes side. Miami must look out for its interests, must be responsible to itself. "Interests" is defined as "long-term financial well-being" and "itself" is defined as "football."
Miami athletics is football - it isn't 'Canes basketball, baseball or the school library that has the ACC aflutter - and the football team couldn't be better. Why make a major change? The new ACC, with a league title game, would be a tougher run to the BCS title game than Miami's current situation. And football titles are Miami's identity.
In the meantime, the 'Canes are holding many schools hostage. Three Big East schools defecting to the ACC will impact dozens and could cripple some. Massive conference shakeups will undermine rivalries (much of college sports' appeal) and weaken, for a time, football and basketball. The Big East, ACC, Conference USA and Atlantic 10 would undergo significant rearrangement that would take years to digest.
What a mess. All because of a questionable move in the first place.
Rave
He was Tampa's original Chucky.
Before Jon Gruden took the town by storm, Chucky Atkins electrified the Sun Dome as a point guard for South Florida.
Atkins is one of the greatest players in USF history, but he came along at the wrong time, 1992-96, a year after the school's last NCAA berth and two years before the current run of six straight nonlosing seasons.
Thus Atkins has been a little underappreciated by the public. At 5-foot-11, he long was underappreciated by the NBA. He didn't latch on in the league until 1999-2000 with hometown Orlando.
Atkins played every game that season, then was traded to Detroit with Ben Wallace for Grant Hill (advantage: Pistons). He played well the past three seasons (10.3 ppg in his career) with little fanfare. But the playoff spotlight has escalated his national profile.
Wednesday, in the final seconds of Game 5 of the East semifinals, Detroit trailed by one. Atkins fearlessly darted to the basket and lifted a scoop shot over Philadelphia's Aaron McKie for the winning points (goaltending was called on Derrick Coleman) with less than a second left. It was the highlight of Atkins' career and reaffirmed his status as USF's most accomplished sports alumnus. And Bulls fans everywhere were smiling.
