More of the same:
Big East Basketball: Back to the Future (Washington Post - December 14, 2012)
According to multiple reports, those seven — Georgetown, St. John’s, Seton Hall, Providence, Villanova, DePaul and Marquette — have informed the league that they’re taking their basketballs and going home. Or, more accurately, leaving home.
Those schools let Commissioner Mike Aresco know their intentions to leave during a conference call on Thursday during which Aresco tried to convince them to reconsider.
. . . All of that led to Thursday’s decision to bolt. The only question now is what form their leaving will take.
There are a number of options — all of them tied to money. If the seven leave en masse they will not, by rule, have to pay an exit fee. On the flip side, they won’t share in the roughly $50 million owed by the five schools that have previously departed. They could vote to dissolve the league. It takes a two-thirds vote, and only South Florida, Connecticut and Cincinnati also have votes on dissolution (Temple is a voting member but not on dissolution). So the votes would be there if needed. Of course it would be difficult then to try to demand exit fees from a league that no longer exists.
More important, long-term, is where the seven schools go next. They could join the Atlantic 10 and create the ludicrous specter of a 21-team conference. Imagine the slogan for the A-10 tournament: “The most exciting three weeks of championship week!”
Or, more logically, and more likely, they could cherry-pick several schools that are similar in profile: Dayton, Xavier, Butler, Saint Joseph’s and even Creighton have been mentioned. Those five plus the old-Big East seven would be a formidable basketball league. Even three of those five would make for a conference that will be very attractive to a TV network. There will be no Tulane-Houston games in that package.
Related post on BE7 conference expansion.
Taking into consideration the Washington Post article and other articles in my post linked above, it now appears that three scenarios are emerging as front-runners:
(1) a 10-school conference with Xavier, Dayton, and Butler (one non-Catholic member).
(2) a 10-school conference with Xavier, Dayton, and Saint Louis (no non-Catholic members).
(3) a 12-school conference with Xavier, Dayton, Saint Louis, Creighton, and Gonzaga (no non-Catholic members).
Muddy’s Observations:
• The Washington Post article above is the first published article I have seen that mentioned
St. Joseph's, but there is no mention of
Saint Louis, who should have a much better chance of being invited by the BE7 than St. Joseph's. I suspect that this may be an error by the article's writer.
• It does not appear that the BE7 has any interest in adding VCU or Richmond to a 6-team East Division of a 12-school conference.
• It does appear that Georgetown is not willingly on board with the other BE7 schools and may wish to join Notre Dame in the ACC for basketball.
• Whether or not Georgetown can convince the ACC to invite them for basketball is unknown at this point.
• If Georgetown does join the ACC for basketball, the BE7 becomes the BE6, who may then decide to invite 4 or 6 more schools:
(4) a 10-school conference with Xavier, Dayton, Saint Louis, and Butler (one non-Catholic member).
(5) a 10-school conference with Xavier, Dayton, Saint Louis, and Creighton (no non-Catholic members).
(6) a 12-school conference with Xavier, Dayton, Saint Louis, Butler, Creighton, and Gonzaga (one non-Catholic member).
• Hopefully, there will be some more factual information about all of this published today (as opposed to more published rumors), but I suspect that the BE7 may not show their hand until next week.
• The Presidents of the BE7 schools have a lot of phone calls to make, a lot of financial projections to review, and a whole lot to consider (including the opinions of wealthy and influential benefactors) before there is any official announcement, and that will take days or weeks – not hours.
• I would not expect the Presidents of the BE7 schools to rush such an important decision and I don’t think they will.