When I look at the 14-member A-10, I just see a mess...
state flagship publics (UMass, URI), a bunch of Catholic schools, with a huge geographic gap between Xavier and out-lier St. Louis, some other (public ?) schools like Temple, GW, Richmond, and Charlotte.
It evolved chaotically, and I think each member has a different idea of where they are and where they want to be. However, from a revenue stand-point (often the only thing that matters, it seems), it sort of works.
If the revenue held up, I could see the Catholic grouping you propose. It seems to include like-minded schools that have more in common, do not emphasize football, and it fills in the gap between Cincy (Xavier) and St. Louis nicely. If 2 Loyolas got confusing, they could alternatively go after Holy Cross.
The other new conference seems to look like C-USA East (UCF, ECU, Marshall), and A-10 FB schools (UMass, URI, Richmond, Temple). Honestly Richmond and GW and maybe Charlotte seem to fit best with the CAA. However, Richmond bugged out for the A-10 sometime back, and not sure if those woulnds have healed.
These groupings seem to suggest schools that have more in common with one another, however, who will take the leadership role to drive this realignment ? That's the sticking point. You need someone with a vision, and the ability to communicate and sell that to a critical mass that buys into that vision. Not sure that you have that strong vision.
There are some disatisfied schools. ECU is rather isolated in CUSA East. Marshall is too, but thought they were upgrading when they left the MAC in 2003. St. Louis had hoped to remain with Depaul and Marquette in 2003 when C-USA went to all-sports, but DePaul and Marquette managed to latch onto the BE. Their AD and President are continually asked whether they would be better served being in the MVC or Horizon (travel-wise) and the A-10's revenue must be the factor that is keeping them from looking around more.
Each school would start looking around much more seriously, if and when the BE committed to a split. That would certainly provide the impetus for schools to look around and gravitate toward their natural long-term partners. But the BE is unlikely to issue a believable statement at any point stating "We are together forever, we shall never split". So a few A-10 schols will likely be sitting on a fence, maintaining the status quo, wondering whether the BE will one day split, and the 7 or 8 non-FB schools (not sure if Notre Dame will be part of that or not) will be looking to offer a few A-10 schools the opportunity to join them in a "basketball Big East conference" that ought to have very good revenue potential.
So St. Louis U. could propose the conference you have offered up, and Xavier and Dayton might respond "that doesn't look too bad, but we think we'll hang around the A-10 here, and see if a better offer materializes." Again, somebody has to take the lead in having the vision and selling it, and I don't see who that is, or if there are enough interested parties that will listen.
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