so this information appears to be bogus. Nonetheless, the Big East might want to continue to expand with non-football schools in order to keep their position and bargaining power as strong as can be when the inevitable SEC/Big10 powerplay comes.

But a crappy conference for just about everything else, meaning it's not going to fly with ND's admin.

You also can't just "dump DePaul", it doesn't work that way.

A case could be made for St. Louis or Loyola if adding tv markets matters for hoops contracts. Though the future of that is uncertain. You could find reasons for buying their stock. But my gut would be that they would probably end up being more mouths to feed. It's a big drop off from the three mentioned earlier based on sustained success.

Now I could see that changing if the purpose of adding Loyola and St. Louis was to split into east and west divisions and give Gonzaga/St. Mary's shorter flights. Gonzaga is probably worth making that accommodation.

It's significantly harder to see the value of Duquesne.

If they wait out the ACC, they could probably have Syracuse and BC. Syracuse, BC, and UConn could then align their football programs with the MAC or Conference USA. I know having some football schools and some non-football schools is what caused the schism in the old Big East, but I'm not worried about that happening again. In the new world order of college football, BC, Syracuse, and UConn have no leverage at all.

nfm

First, they were founding members of the original Big East and are actually located in the northeast. Secondly, I think their football programs are sufficiently undesirable that they won't have any better options, and they may be willing to prioritize basketball over football, similar to what UConn did. Louisville, Virginia Tech, Pitt and most of the rest of the ACC leftovers will prioritize football, which probably means joining the Big 12 if offered.

Bc sure. But The Orange just nabbed a rising young assistant and brought in a good transfer class. Plus the Big 12 would go after them if the ACC goes away.

Hybrid status, depending on exactly who the leftovers are. If there are gaps remaining, fill in those by inviting South Florida, maybe Buffalo and Temple (yeah, I know Villanova might try to block them, but maybe they can be convinced if the new conference makes more money for everyone.)

UConn, Duke, Wake, BC, Syracuse would all make sense. Georgia Tech would probably end up in the Big 12, but if not, they'd make sense too. The final 3-4 teams could come from the group of SMU, Rice, Army, Navy, UMass.

South Florida (this one seems like a slam dunk to me if they're not offered by the Big XII)
Buffalo
Temple (you would need to get Villanova onboard with this one, but I think football would earn more money for everyone)
Dayton (only if they upgraded football to FBS-level, I wouldn't take them along with this group as a non-FBS program)

If you take those and throw in hoops-onlys, you end up with a huge conference where you can't play round-robin and you're traveling all over the place.

When the old hybrid Big East existed, 12 teams was the norm for most conferences, whereas the Big East held 16 members in total. Now, we're embarking on an era with two superconferences (Big Ten and SEC) of 20+ members apiece, a third conference (Big XII) with similar numbers, and two of the Power 5 conferences (Pac-12 and, in this exercise, the ACC) defunct. Further, unlike back then, there likely won't be a demand for the football members of the Big East.

By contrast, you have Yormark with a fetish for basketball, and if he gets the votes, you could see him poach Georgetown, St. John's and Villanova from the Big East. That would severely weaken the Big East imho. And because of football, the media payout for the Big XII dwarves the media payout for the Big East. Big East members get @ $4.5 million/year; Big XII members are getting upwards of $30 million/year. That's not to say that non-football schools would ever get full shares from the Big XII, but they could get partial shares that would result in significant pay increases over what they're getting now. As we all know, money talks.

...where you're playing one game a week at maximum. A basketball team having to go from Florida to Massachusetts and back again during the week is much more difficult.

You can do 12 teams with two divisions, giving you 18 total games -- round-robin in your division and one game against the six in the other division. That's fine and workable. But for a sport like basketball, anything beyond that gets goofy.

What people here want is a return to the 70's/80's when we were playing DePaul and Marquette and UCLA twice a year. That was an awesome time and I'd like to see it come back. Unfortunately, those days are gone.

The Big Ten and Big XII, for example. Even the SEC stretches from South Carolina in the East to Texas in the west.

I wish it wasn't like this, but I fear that this particular genie isn't going back in the bottle.

...you're going to see those conferences sub-divide into groups that make a hell of a lot more sense for the non-football sports.

Somehow we always end up back at the same place all because nobody wants to recognize the fact that if the ACC blows up, we’re headed to the Big Ten.

Granted, they were never in the Big East, but both schools would be institutional fits within that conference.

Syracuse has at least a puncher's chance of making the Big XII as Pitt's tag along, especially given Yormark's fascination with basketball.

New conference. Same problems.