will be new members of the Big East by 2005. Sooooo... was this a basketball decision?

Everyone was expecting FB based expansion but they seemed to be catering to their basketball membership.

Does this mean C-USA can sue them since they took twice as many members as did the ACC?

LMAO BigE your hit the nail right on the head more lawsuits.

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The Bear may be dead but he still hates Tennessee. Roll Damn Tide

Who are you referring to when you say "they" seem to be catering to their basketball membership? ??? ???

Of course anyone can sue anyone else whenever they want. ;)

First time poster.

BigE, could it be both?

As FriarFan pointed out on another post awhile back, the cost to leave might have been too great for the FB schools. So, the FB and BB schools set themselves up for the future by getting this conference together for 5 years, meet the 6 in 5 rule, and disband. One group keeps the auto bids, while the other loses it for one year (the MWC was out a bid for only one year when it left the WAC). Agreements are put in place for conference payouts at the time of the split.

It seems like phase one in a long term plan that helps both sides.

I know its america and we have limted freedom. But more than were I'm at now.

_________________
The Bear may be dead but he still hates Tennessee. Roll Damn Tide

What the BE needed, football wise, was a) a minimum of 8 members playing 1-A ball, and b) reasonable enough additions to bolster their claim to a BCS berth. But, as has been discussed extensively throughout other threads, the negotiations in choosing those schools meant certain compromises in order to keep the BE non-fb schools happy. In this case, equal number of members who play or don't play 1-A football.

The BE was and remains a basketball first conference, so it was inevitable that would be addressed somehow. They may yet split into different conferences someday, too, and this secures the minimum membership for each in that regard. These additions essentially equate to the Gavitt plan proposed in early August. Most everyone, I thought, knew something like this would happen unless there was indeed a split right away.



The idea of 4 schools insstead of 2 has little, if anything to do with a legal issue here. The BE was suing the ACC because they claim the ACC and Miami a) agreed to conditions on realignment without any discussion with the BE conference, and b) that part of the ACC plans were designed to specifically damage the BE to the point it might lose it's BCs status. Erego, they set out to kill the BE on purpose.

In looking towards CUSA schools, the BE has been fairly forthcoming to the CUSA about its plans and who it was interested in, and the membership within CUSA will remain large enough that they would not lose their eligibility to remain a 1-A conference. And while CUSA will have some realignment issue of its own to address now, they did not have a BCS status to lose to begin with so there is even less claim to the concept of the BE setting out to destroy CUSA. IMO

Gunnerfan, nice explanation. Just to elaborate on one point . . .

The Big East lawsuit is based not only on the failure to communicate that you mention but on the fact that everything Miami communicated while its president sat on the Big East Board was in direct contradiction to what it actually was doing and thereby in direct violation of her fiduciary responsibilities as a sitting member of that Board. She had a legal obligation to communicate accurately & factually. While assuring the Big East that Miami planned to continue as a conference member for the foreseeable future, Miami worked to do just the opposite. This was neither accurate, factual, nor honest. While she could use her inside information about the plans of the Big East to further the interests of the University of Miami, she denied the Big East information about Miami's plans which the Big East could have used to pursue its own interests. Nothing that the Big East has done in its planning for expansion or in ints interest in members of CUSA or any other conference remotely resemblesthis. The issue was never the raid; it's how it was done.

Big E, there is no "they" vs the basketball-only schools. The Big East has 12 members - all equal. It's by-laws require 9 votes (75%) to approve any new member. For the 6 football schools to bring in the new football members they need, they had to have the agreement of at least 3 basketball schools. This led to negotiations. Just as with any negotiations where different interests are represented, compromise & concessions are required to reach an agreement.

The only way that the football schools could have avoided this would have been to leave the conference. This is impossible for the football schools to do & maintain their BCS membership under the current BCS contract. They can make a change when the next BCS contract is signed sometime in the next 3 years - if they are still included in the BCS at that time.

Other disincentives for the football schools to break away at this time have been discussed extensively elsewheere. Suffice it to say that they involve money & other perqs that come with continuing as members of the existing conference rather than starting a new one. These are also factors which the member schools have had to evaluate to make a decision. Intelligent minds may disagree with whatever the decision happens to be.

Now that the reports are out that the ACC may wheel and deal to get Notre Dame , it is obvious they are out to destroy the big east.They could have there pick of any CUSA school they want but they are intent on doing in the Big East. I am not for radical rulings but it would be great if the court case against them goes real bad and they end up paying so much money their schools dont make a profit for years to come. Without Notre Dame in the Big East even for just basketball,they are going to be toast. I imagine athletic directors at the schools are squirming in their seats now. If i was the AD at Syracuse i would be on the line to Jim Delaney right now starting talks.

I don't understand how ND's loss destroys the BE. That would be the one school that would least hurt the BE. ND really doesn't add much other than fb and prestige. Their bb was bad for years until they joined the BE. They are good at a lot of minor sports, but that is all very recent success.

Losing BC, SU, WVU, Pitt hurts fb (and SU bb). Losing UConn hurts bb. Losing Rutgers hurts in losing a piece of a key market. They really don't lose much of anything if ND leaves except the possibility that ND might someday join the BE in fb.

Heard somewhere that the Rutgers and Seton Hall ADs were quoted as saying the CUSA 4 to BE reports were premature, that they were looking at a number of scenarios. The impression I got was that this probably is the leading candidate scenario, but they haven't worked through all the ramifications.

bullet it sounds to me as if the Big East is still confused on who or whom to invite and if they are still going to split. We will not know until Nov 4.

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The Bear may be dead but he still hates Tennessee. Roll Damn Tide

While the ACC may have had it's pick of CUSA or SunBelt schools the idea behind their expansion was to get the best ones available. My tables on "Rating #12 for ACC" suggest that most CUSA schools fail in one or multiple criteria when being measured up for ACC membership. Tulane's a great school, but athletically weak and not as attractive for TV. Louisville has strong sports, but is regarded academically lacking. Bottom line, when they sought out candidates they wanted to get better, not just larger. Now, how they went about it is another story...



I'll disagree here. Referring again to my tables, the BE schools acquit themselves quite well. ND's absence won't hurt the basketball, for sure. In fact, everyone will tell you ND will be the big loser there, as their AD and others have said on record that BE membership brought their program back into national contention. Similar story for Olympic sports.

And even if BE football is considered mid-major, which I won't go so far to say, it would be the best mid-major along with the MWC. Certainly better than CUSA, WAC or SunBelt.

If the expansion goes as planned (what plan there is anyway), the Big East should easily be the best basketball conference, bar none. I think they'll have very good ratings without ND and tons of bids (though it annoys me that they aren't after Xavier). Football, on the other hand, may be a disaster, which is a real shame for a program like UConn that is really bootstrapping itself into a competitive IA squad so quickly.

Still wish the ACC had gone to 14 in each major sport, w/Miami, UConn, 'Cuse, BC, and Va Tech for football only. Ditch the Duke football program. Sure, you have tons of mouths to feed, but you'd make a KILLING televising basketball in that conference, and the Football would definitely pull in impressive numbers from the northeast (by college football standards) with so many teams involved in one major conference and you'd have the title game and probably 3 BCS bids. You'd also totaly dominate the bids when March Madness rolled around, w/ 6 or 7 bids on a bad year.

Pretty ruthless, but it'd be quite a conference.

It was a political decision.
After Miami and VT leave they have 6 FB-playing members and 6 non-FB (including ND).

Adding new members obviously takes more than 50% agreement (75% for Big East?).

The BB schools, who have complained of FB running the show too much, probably want to stay on an even level with the FB members, i.e. same number of teams.

so if they must have 8 FB members, they wanted 8 non-FB members too.

Of course, the one who this most benefits is ND. often their thoughts are with the BB schools, but sometimes they side with the FB schools on issues.

Their swing vote has just made them the most powerful voice in the conference!