I was trying to figure out what could happen in the geographically stretched A-10 in a few years, and I came up with this.
It creates a Northeast/Midwest non-football conference and a new eastern FBS conference. I feel that the A-10 might do something if the Big East does not split, which they might not have the impetus to do:

Eastern Athletic Conference (12):
Dayton
Xavier
St. Louis
Duquesne
St. Bonaventure
Fordham
St. Joseph's
La Salle
Butler (Horizon)
Loyola Chicago (Horizon)
Detroit Mercy (Horizon)
Loyola Marlyand (MAAC)

This fills in a lot of space between St. Louis and the rest of these A-10 schools, brings together all private schools in most large midwestern and northeastern cities. It also allows for nice divisions:

EAC West: Butler, Dayton, Detroit Mercy, Loyola Chicago, St. Louis, Xavier
EAC East: Duquesne, Loyola Maryland, La Salle, St. Bonnie's, St. Joseph's, Fordham

The A-10 can then build a new eastern FBS conference, giving a home to Temple, Charlotte, and UMass if they ever wanted to make the jump:

Atlantic Ten Conference (13):
Appalachian State
Buffalo
Central Florida
Charlotte
East Carolina
Marshall
Miami Ohio
Ohio
Temple
UMass (FB in CAA unless they can make jump)
George Washington (non-football)
Rhode Island (FB in CAA)
Richmond (FB in CAA)

This gives a possible future home to any school in their conference that might want to make the jump to FBS (presuming that App State and Charlotte both want to once the moratorium is up), ad sets up some nice rivalries with the Big East:

Miami Ohio-Cincy
Marshall-West Virginia
Temple-Villanova
Central Florida-South Florida
Buffalo-Syracuse
URI/UMass-UConn
GW-Georgetown


Any thoughts on what might happen in the A-10 if the Big East does not split, if anything? Would my proposed EAC and A-10 generate enough revenue to make this an option for these schools?

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.

I just don't see real drastic changes happening since a new conference means no autobid. Until that is resolved by the NCAA, you'll see only minor changes. It's all well and good for independents to team up in the Great West. But it's another for teams already in good situations to forfeit a potential bid. And then there are the TV contracts. From what I'm looking at in this thread, I don't see CBS or ESPN willing to knock on any doors.

It's a similar problem to what we've all discussed with the Big East. If the football schools walked and formed something new, it would cause minor problems regarding money. Just look at the lineup: UConn, Louisville, Pittsburgh will likely be #1 or #2 seeds. WVU will be a 7-9 seed. Throw in Memphis and you get another #2 seed. Syracuse will be a 6-8 seed. Leaves only Rutgers, USF and Cincy out. That's 6 of 9 schools would get at-large bids. And the TV contract would be pretty darn good.

That's an extreme example that would work.

It's just too much of an economic risk for the non bCS conferences to do anything drastic.

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I agree, right now there's not much need for change until the Big East makes their moves. There is a possibility that in a split that both the non-fb and fb schools can skirt the 5-year rule, since they can both claim they've been playing together for 5 years, ala a MWC-WAC split situation. This would let whichever schools that are going to join them leave the A-10 without losing an automatic bid, and would then open up some moves to keep the A-10 viable, since they will have at least 9 schools together (I can see St. Louis going to the MVC to get a more comfortable travel situation), so they'll keep their autobid.

A-10 is not interested in football