Top conference for NCAA titles in 2021-22? The balance was amazing, but soon to swing

Mississippi was the final at-large team selected to the NCAA baseball bracket, making the Rebels’ triumph over Oklahoma in the Men’s College World Series final on Sunday all the more satisfying.

It also created remarkable balance among Power Five conferences for 2021-22.

Baseball is the final of the NCAA’s 38 men’s and women’s Division I championships for the school year, and here’s the breakdown of titles by conference:

Seven each for the SEC, Big 12, ACC and Pac-12. Five for the Big Ten. Five more were captured by non-Power Five schools.

That’s crazy competitive, and balance across the land is worth celebrating, although it won’t last long. Six of the seven Big 12 titles were won by Texas and Oklahoma, soon to be in the SEC.

The Longhorns captured men’s golf and indoor track, women’s tennis and rowing. The Sooners took softball and women’s gymnastics. Kansas’ men’s basketball championship was the lone non-Red River Rivalry title.

A banner year for the Big 12, but 2021-22 also serves as a harbinger of league’s future. With the change of address will go the Big 12’s biggest athletic budgets that fund all of the sports.

The moves, including the Big 12’s addition of Brigham Young, Cincinnati, Houston and Central Florida, are made for football, and it’s to be determined how the league’s new media rights will be valued after the current contract expires in 2025.

But it takes competitive budgets to compete at the highest level in any sport. In 2020-21, the last year for which figures are available, Texas and Oklahoma ranked third and fifth in operating expenses, according to a Sportico database.

Six of the top 10 are SEC schools, not including UT and OU. The top non-Texas and Oklahoma school on the list is Kansas at No. 33.

The late KU athletic director Bob Frederick believed the best path was for most schools to identify a few sports to challenge for national championships, while continue to provide opportunities in the others. That way, every school has something to brag about.

Back in the old Big Eight days, Oklahoma and Nebraska would often settle football, while Oklahoma State dominated NCAA wrestling and golf, Iowa State won gymnastics titles, and Kansas captured track and cross country championships.

At a conference level this year, it was kind of like that. The SEC won marquee titles in football (Georgia), women’s basketball (South Carolina) and baseball (Ole Miss). But the championship wealth was spread across the land with no league hoarding the hardware.

Realignment figures to change the championship math.

NCAA Division I champions by conference 2021-22

Big 12

Texas: men’s indoor track, men’s golf, rowing, women’s tennis

Oklahoma: softball, women’s gymnastics

Kansas: men’s basketball

SEC

Florida: women’s indoor track, women’s outdoor track, men’s outdoor track

Georgia: FBS football

South Carolina: women’s basketball

Kentucky: rifle

Mississippi: baseball

Big Ten

Northwestern: field hockey

Wisconsin: women’s volleyball

Ohio State: women’s ice hockey

Penn State: wrestling

Maryland: women’s lacrosse

ACC

Virginia: women’s swimming, women’s tennis

Clemson: men’s soccer

NC State: women’s cross country

Florida State: women’s soccer

North Carolina: women’s lacrosse

Notre Dame: fencing

Pac-12

Stanford: women’s water polo, women’s golf, men’s gymnastics

California: men’s water polo, men’s swimming

USC: beach volleyball

Utah: skiing

Others

Northern Arizona: men’s cross country

McKendree: bowling

Denver: men’s ice hockey

Hawaii: men’s volleyball

North Dakota State: FCS football