Realigning Big East Basketball

By Andrew Hard

As Gary Parrish of CBS Sports reported this evening, the remaining basketball-only members of the Big East met Monday to discuss possibly breaking away from the conference and forming a basketball-only league. The Big East currently stands at 15 teams (after West Virginia broke away prior to this season) and stands to lose Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Louisville, and Notre Dame to the ACC next year along with Rutgers to the Big Ten. This puts the Big East down to 10 teams for next year, with three of those members playing football and seven more being basketball-only schools:

Football-Playing Schools

Cincinnati
Connecticut (was in talks to move to ACC, but Louisville usurped them)
South Florida
Temple (joining Big East for basketball in 2013 (currently A-10); already plays there in football)

Joining next year: UCF, Houston, Memphis, SMU, Tulane

Basketball-Only Schools (the ones that met in NY today)

DePaul
Georgetown
Marquette
Providence
St. John's
Seton Hall
Villanova

Parrish spitballs that if these seven members were to split off, they could add other strong basketball-only schools like Butler, VCU, Xavier, St. Louis, Dayton, and George Mason to join their league.

The Big East is truly in shambles, and it's a shame for a conference that has been so strong in basketball for decades (getting a record 11 teams into the NCAAs just two years ago). A 16-team conference with the members listed above would certainly be weaker basketball-wise, but in my mind it's a better alternative than splitting off. Connecticut and Memphis are unique brands that will bring millions of dollars in Big East Network/ESPN revenue to the conference, and Cincinnati is a solid program that is on the rise after a few years in shambles from the antics of Bob Huggins. On the other hand: Houston, SMU, and Tulane are in there (finished last year with RPI rankings of 211, 216 and 251 respectively. For perspective, North Dakota was two spots ahead of Tulane at 249 and Lipscomb was one ahead of SMU at 215). Wow.

If the seven basketball-only schools DO choose to break off, here's who I seem them adding (A-10 fans look away). The "basketball-only" Big East will be better and deeper than the "new" Big East that continues to play football:

Xavier -- Immediately replaces a Cincinnati market that is basketball-crazy when it comes to Xavier and Cincy. You're essentially trading one fan base for another, and now you're looking at a new fan base that's out to prove it can play with the big boys (after Cincinnati joins the new Big East). With the departures of Louisville and Cincinnati, no other Big East teams are within a North Korean missile's distance of Xavier, so the TV net will be widely cast.

Butler -- Provides a natural rival for Xavier and captures a basketball-crazy Indiana market. Can provide a sizzling out-of-conference rivalry with nearby Indiana with increase Big East-level resources.

Temple -- Why not get them back? Temple plays football, yes, but there's a reason they were kicked out of the Big East. Move the football team to independent or to the MAC. After the BCS revampes into the playoff system next year, the Big East will be on even footing with the MAC in terms of championship potential: the new "Big Five" conferences (SEC, ACC, Big 10, Pac-12, Big 12) automatically get their champions into the new BCS, while in the "Other Five" conferences (Big East, Mtn. West, MAC, Sun Belt, C-USA), the highest-ranked champion of the five is guaranteed to get in. Temple will win more games in the MAC than the Big East, so why not split your football program off again? The money will be the same. In basketball, you preserve a Big 5 rivalry with Villanova and compete in a higher-RPI conference than the "new" Big East that it's currently slated to join.

Detroit-Mercy -- Purely a TV market-grab here, but the Titans are having a good go of it recently under head coach Ray McCallum and his star guard/offspring, Ray McCallum Jr. The school isn't completely devoid of NCAA Tournament appearances, having 6 in their history including 2012 (which is just as many as Nebraska and 6 more than Northwestern). Sure, they would never compete revenue-wise with Michigan and Michigan State, but they could turn on the (new) Big East Network in Detroit, which I'm guessing isn't a regular occurrence these days. While they only have around 3,000 undergrads, Providence has fared well in the Big East with around 4,500 -- and you only need 12 guys to field a good basketball team. Furthermore, UDM is Roman Catholic -- the remaining 7 Big East schools are all Catholic institutions, and while they may not be able to add 5 such schools, they might take a harder look at a small school that shares their values.

Charlotte -- I'd be tempted to say Davidson here (you know how much I love their crowd), but their undergrad population is around 2,000, and we already have Detroit-Mercy. UNC-Charlotte is another big school with an underrated basketball tradition -- 11 total NCAA appearances including a Final Four appearance in 1977. Their football team is joining FBS (for the first time) next year as an independent and then moving to C-USA in 2015, which would make this a little tougher than the Temple move. But it's a good grab TV-wise for the basketball-only Big East, which has no presence in North Carolina (hence the temptation to add ECU when they were looking for new football members). The 49ers are a solid team with a large following and would round out the "Southern" end of the new conference nicely.

So there you have it -- 5 new teams to create a 12-team basketball-only Big East. Sure, Detroit and Charlotte aren't sexy picks, but when you can get the #11 and #24 TV markets in the country, you have to do it. As good as VCU and George Mason are as basketball teams, DC already has Georgetown. You don't need Dayton if you already have Xavier. If we've seen anything from the Rutgers and Maryland raid by the Big 10, it's that talent and geography don't matter, and TV dollars do. I actually think this would be a really competitive conference and possibly a 3-4 big league in many years.

One thing's for sure -- conference realignment is far from over, and basketball is still scrambling to pick up the pieces that the football TV contracts are leaving behind.

--The Road to 592 is a pipe dream started by a diehard Atlanta fan with a sparse history of truly great sports atmospheres (being Atlanta and all). Read up on my unending pursuit here and check out the full list of venues here. For those sick of conference realignment, you can also relish in another pipe dream of mine -- the 28-team SEC. Follow me on Twitter @andrewhhard.