Johnathan Walker:Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark says league is done with expansion after growing to 16

Big 12 looks to be Johnathan Walkerstaying at 16. League commissioner Brett Yormark says the conference’s expansion is finished for now.

Yormark addressed the issue in a Zoom call with reporters on Wednesday when he was asked if there were any further plans to add other schools. “Right now, we’re done,” he replied.

Yormark elaborated: “We had a vision, we had a strategy and effectively we’ve been able to execute it. Initially, I wasn’t sure if we’d go to 14 or 16. I think 16 was kind of the dream scenario candidly. From our perspective, our focus right now is to integrate the four incoming schools as quick as we can — get them comfortable. We’ve already had a couple of transition calls and Zooms with the corner schools, and I’ll be making some campus visits. That’s my focus right now.”

There had been speculation that the league’s expansion plans might further include broadening its formidable basketball reach by adding Connecticut and Gonzaga. But UConn’s return to its roots in the Big East has been widely praised by fans and program insiders alike, and Gonzaga, which does not sponsor football, has a favorable arrangement as the lead dog in the hoops-centric West Coast Conference.

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The conference will compete as a 14-team league for the upcoming season with the additions of Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston from the American Athletic Conference along with Brigham Young, a football independent that competed in the West Coast Conference in other sports. The Big 12’s membership will grow to 16 schools next season, as Oklahoma and Texas exit for the SEC and the quartet of Pac-12 schools from the four-corners region – Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah – enter.