Oct 07 2011 08:31 AM
Re: SU Hoops 2011:Nothing Could be Finer than to be in Carol
The Big East is dying a slow, torturous death.
 October 6, 2011 Loss of T.C.U. Imperils Big East’s Football Future By PETE THAMEL As the uncertainty of realignment continues to overshadow the college football season, Texas Christian delivered a crushing blow to the Big East Conference when news of its imminent departure to the Big 12 emerged Thursday. Fitting for these chaotic times, T.C.U., which would have entered the Big East for the 2012 football season, left the conference before ever playing a game. T.C.U.’s decision does not mean the death of Big East football, but there are a lot of possibilities that make its survival tenuous. The Big East is down to six football programs — Connecticut, Rutgers, Cincinnati, South Florida, Louisville and West Virginia. Louisville has recently served as the anchor in trying to keep the league together, while Rutgers and especially Connecticut flirted with other leagues. But even the outlook at Louisville is bleak. “It’s one of the most disappointing things I’ve seen in 35 years in the game to see this thing break up like this,” Rick Pitino, the Louisville basketball coach, said. “We’ve stayed loyal to it all along. We’ve stayed loyal, and by staying loyal we’re not sure what’s going to happen to us.” Pitino can wax nostalgic about the Big East basketball tournament, which has emerged as the nation’s best conference event, but that does not seem to matter in a market driven by football. “We should all celebrate this last year,” Pitino said. “It could be the last year we have a chance to play and go through the Big East tournament.” After adding T.C.U., the Big 12 will focus on keeping Missouri. The Big Ten, where Missouri wants to go, is not interested in the Tigers. The Southeastern Conference does not like to appear as a second choice, but it may take Missouri to fix the scheduling problems inherent to having 13 teams. Although there have been conflicting reports on the SEC’s interest in the Tigers, it is unlikely that a flirtation would have reached this point if the SEC commissioner, Mike Slive, did not have the votes to get Missouri in. Give the Big 12 credit for shedding two decades of dysfunction to try to keep the Tigers. In a 24-hour blur, it added T.C.U., agreed to a six-year minimum grant of television rights and found a truce over broadcasts on the Longhorn Network. Funny what desperation can do. Will the agreements be enough to keep Missouri? We should know in the next 10 days. The decision appears to be in the unpredictable hands of Missouri’s board of curators. Once Missouri decides whether to stay or go, the Big 12 has to figure out how much it wants to expand. If the Tigers stay, the league could remain at 10 teams. But that would probably be a point where it would explore potential revenue options. Opinions are split in the Big 12 about whether Louisville or West Virginia would be a better fit for No. 10 if Missouri leaves. For now, give a slight edge to West Virginia because it is a better television draw. How does T.C.U.’s decision affect Notre Dame? Sometimes amid the realignment frenzy, it is easy to focus on the chum instead of the fish. Notre Dame is one of the biggest fish in college sports, and a destabilized Big East may force its future toward a conference in football. The eyes of administrators around the country are on the Irish athletic director, Jack Swarbrick. “Everyone is waiting for Jack to figure out what he’s going to do,” the Colonial Athletic Association commissioner, Tom Yeager, said. The Irish will not be keen on staying in the Big East if the conference’s football side dissolves. Notre Dame has not entered discussions with the Atlantic Coast Conference or the Big Ten. But as the future of Big East football dims, the possibility of those conferences as landing places increases considerably. The best possibility for Notre Dame is finding a partial landing spot in the A.C.C. That could mean Notre Dame’s basketball and non-revenue sports teams would become full-fledged A.C.C. members. In football, Notre Dame could set up a scheduling agreement with the A.C.C. in which it would play a certain number of the conference teams each season yet keep its football independence. Television executives believe that each Notre Dame game could be worth about $3 million for the league. If Notre Dame did this, UConn, not Rutgers, would round out the A.C.C. as the 16th member. It is likely the Irish would enter a creative scheduling agreement before entering a conference as a full member. (The Big 12 has also been amenable to such a deal, but the A.C.C. would probably be Notre Dame’s preference.) Jim Delany, the Big Ten commissioner, has been adamant about not expanding, but it is no secret that he has always had eyes for the Irish. He would not, however, agree to a partial deal for Notre Dame football. Will the Big East’s basketball members break from the football ones? Not yet, but this is certainly more realistic than it was 48 hours ago. The Big East still has two precious commodities: its Bowl Championship Series bid and its basketball tournament. The Big East cannot survive many more football defections, although all it can really do is wait until the vultures pick it clean and attempt to regroup. The same names will surface — Air Force, Navy, Central Florida, Temple and East Carolina — to join the conference. The T.C.U. decision also underscores how unstable the Big East is for attracting future members. As for the basketball colleges, they have pledged loyalty to their football brethren. But talk has been cheap in recent weeks. Look for Xavier, Butler, Dayton and Richmond to emerge as possible basketball additions if the Big East goes back to its basketball roots. |
