Hey, remember three days ago, when we told you that per Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity, the SEC wasn't looking at a 14-team schedule for the 2012 season?
HAHAHA just kidding, folks:
As reported by the Birmingham News's Jon Solomon, yes, that's Mike Slive telling reporters at SEC basketball media days that McGarity was (as the kids say) full of it. (Slive only added that he had nothing else to add.) Since we're pretty sure there's no better source on this than the commissioner himself, it's now safe to assume that Missouri has not been ruled out from competing in the SEC in 2012 and that the league is prepared to make the necessary accomodations if the Tigers want to make the leap as soon as next season.
That, of course, was how Missouri chancellor Brady Deaton had previously described his school's potential jump, saying recently it would be "applicable to the next year."
That assertion has been challenged by everyone from McGarity to Big 12 commissioner Chuck Neinas to plenty of other anonymously sourced reports that have put Mizzou in the SEC in 2013 at the earliest. That makes more sense than the alternative, since the rearranging of 2012 schedules at this late date on both the Big 12's end (with a giant Missouri-sized hole in their slates) and the SEC's would be a logistical nightmare.
But it may be a nightmare both the Tigers and the SEC are willing to deal with, if it means the former dodges a lame-duck final season in the Big 12 and the latter avoids the awkwardness of a 13-team schedule. With Slive now openly admitting for the first time that the SEC is poised to go to 14 teams and the Big 12 actively pursuing the addition of one or more new members, it seems likelier than ever Missouri's defection could become official in a matter of days rather than weeks.
Will that be soon enough to leap through the rapidly-closing 2012 scheduling window? That still seems unlikely, but if Mike Slive himself is open to the possibility, the possibility is no doubt open.
