Gonzaga says they are interested:

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

Why would UConn, Cincy, etc. want to be in a conference with basketball schools driving the bus? As it stands, there will be a conference of the following schools. Temple, Memphis, Houston, USF, UCF, UConn, Cincy, SMU, and Tulane. Assuming they move ECU to full membership, that's a 10 team conference. Why would they park their other sports in another conference???

Well, as a football conference, that's a pretty bad conference. As a basketball conference, it's even worse. And why send your non-money makers to Louisiana, Texas, and Florida for over 50% of their road dates if you can simply play better competition closer to home and have your football program in the MAC or C-USA?

I realize it's not ideal, but until the ACC comes calling (which may never happen) I have to think being a member of a basketball-centric Big East for all non-football sports is better in terms of competition and travel while also remaining higher profile than it would be to leash yourselves to the likes of Tulane and ECU in all sports. If at some point you get that ACC invite, you take all your sports and go, but until that day comes, that conference just looks like a ton of bad piled on top of more bad.

EDIT: Further, wasn't the appeal of the future of Big East football largely based on the arrival of San Diego State and Boise State, both of whom have decent football programs? With the league likely to dissolve and the two best football programs (Rutgers and Louisville) gone, how much appeal is there for either of them to join up if the dissolution lets them out of that commitment? Will they be happy to be teams 11 and 12 in that list you had above? If not, that league has nothing of any real value, unless you count frequent flier miles.

[wiscwarrior]

Why would UConn, Cincy, etc. want to be in a conference with basketball schools driving the bus? As it stands, there will be a conference of the following schools. Temple, Memphis, Houston, USF, UCF, UConn, Cincy, SMU, and Tulane. Assuming they move ECU to full membership, that's a 10 team conference. [/B]Why would they park their other sports in another conference???

[/B][/B][/B]

Only because they would have no choice if the Big East no longer sponsored football and their basketball programs (which are their best programs) would be faced with playing in lesser conferences (MAC, CUSA, etc.) Yes, if the ACC comes calling they will go. However there still may be some football schools with good basketball programs that are still left at the table. If we want to be a premiere basketball conference,we need all the premiere basketball programs we can get. What's wrong with offering them a seat at our table.

[TheSultan]

[/B][/B][/B]

Only because they would have no choice if the Big East no longer sponsored football and their basketball programs (which are their best programs) would be faced with playing in lesser conferences (MAC, CUSA, etc.) Yes, if the ACC comes calling they will go. However there still may be some football schools with good basketball programs that are still left at the table. If we want to be a premiere basketball conference,we need all the premiere basketball programs we can get. What's wrong with offering them a seat at our table.

I think the obvious solution is for them to band together.

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

I think the obvious solution is for them to band together.

Are there really enough of them to band together? And I'm not just talking quantity, I'm talking quality. You can add an ECU or Tulane, but how much will it suck dealing with those sub-200 RPI drags from your own conference? If they went with a 10-team league with what was listed above, that's 3 teams that were sub-200 RPI last year (Tulane, SMU, Houston) and another sub-150 (ECU).

We've talked all week about how we don't want to trade in playing teams like Louisville and Syracuse for teams like Fordham or George Washington. Do you really think UConn and Cincy are anxious to do just that all in the name of keeping all their sports in one league that would be marked for death before the first game, especially with that kind of travel schedule?

[TheSultan]

Brew, I really mean band together as a football conference. Out of those schools, most primarily are interested in football. The only real exception is UConn...and maybe Cincy...but that's the main reason the basketball schools are bailing.