The Big East is dead

[woot]

If the B10 won't take OK St. because of academics neither will we. The Pac is better than the B10 in academics.

The Pac has 4 or 5 really good schools and a whole bunch of dead weight. The B10 only has Nebraska dragging it down, and Nebraska is better than several Pac schools. It's also reasonable to assume that Nebraska's academics will catch up to the rest of the B10 before too many years go by. The same can't be said for all of the Pac's losers.

[Jarid in Cedar]

Mobile ESPN is saying "Breaking News: ACC accepts application of Pitt and Syracuse" It is not on the regular site yet, but WOW. This probably loosens the constraint that Larry Scott has had the last 2 weeks.

[Jarid in Cedar]

Here is the story:

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/story/2011-09-17/acc-approves-syracuse-pittsburgh-big-east/50448806/1

Sorry TCU, RIP Big East Football

[Uncle Ted]

The government will bring sanity back to the conference realignment...

Congressional Scrutiny of Conference Realignment Is Said to Be Likely
By PETE THAMEL
The chaos of conference realignment has drawn the attention of Congress.

In a telephone interview early Sunday morning, a congressman from a state with a university that could be harmed by realignment said that the issue raised concerns over taxes, antitrust law and potentially Title IX.

While no one has formally approached Congress yet, the congressman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the situation was “spinning out of control.”

“I think the situation is rising to a level where getting Congress engaged may be unavoidable,” he said.

With the Atlantic Coast Conference expected to announce the addition of Pittsburgh and Syracuse at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday and with Oklahoma’s regents discussing their potential move to the Pacific-12 on Monday, the landscape of college sports could look very different by the end of the week.

In an era of billion-dollar contracts, and with dozens of state university athletic departments attempting to balance budgets of tens of millions of dollars, there’s a potential loss of public money for the colleges left behind.

“I think Congress has a variety of ways in which they could engage,” the congressman said. “What we’re seeing is an effort by certain institutions to push other major institutions out of revenue deals and thereby impacting universities. And it’s done in a way that’s breaching contracts.”

Although the congressman said he was stopping short of saying that Congress should get involved -- he said he needed to see how things played out -- he said it was likely to draw Congress's interest. He pointed out how Congress got involved in the steroid issue in baseball.

“Congress has the nexus to engage,” he said.”These are tax-exempt organizations now making billions off of unpaid athletes. When it’s a regional league, it seems to make sense. When you’re taking schools practically from coast to coast and putting them in big-profit revenue leagues, we may be at a point where the N.C.A.A. has lost its ability to create a fair system for all to play in.”

A lawyer who has higher education clients and has been involved in discussions with Congress about the legal ramifications of conference realignment said the threat of Congressional involvement was real.

“The sudden consolidation of the B.C.S. conferences may raise any number of issues that Congress will want to explore, especially because these conference affiliation decisions have been made quickly and out of view of all concerned constituencies ? student-athletes, alumni, fans, and the governments who control the public universities that overwhelmingly populate the B.C.S.,” said the lawyer, who was not authorized by his clients to speak publically on the subject.

The extent of Congressional interest could come down to how many colleges are squeezed monetarily from the shifting landscape.

“If my school is somehow left out, my constituents are going to demand I do everything in my power to stop that,” the congressman said.

Ann Richards? Is that you?

[TripletDaddy]

Oh no, is the Texas legislature going to get involved?!?

[Moliere]

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/8735330/big-east-direction-concerns-conference-catholic-schools-sources-say

"The basketball schools are not thrilled with Tulane and what they will do to the league's RPI," said a league source from a football-playing member. "They were not all that excited with that addition.

The source added that "the basketball schools would have fallen off the ledge if we would have added East Carolina as a full member and what that would have done to the basketball league."

[LiveCoug]

Sources are now saying that BE basketball schools might join up with the A-10 and make a super conference....

[Indy Coug]

Wow, I really feel badly for Boise and SDSU. On second thought, I don't.

[wapiti]

Sources are now saying that BE basketball schools might join up with the A-10 and make a super conference....

That's exactly where this is headed and exactly where I would go if I were one of the hoops only schools.