College Basketball Realignment: Best- and Worst-Case Scenarios for New Big East

The Big East made its latest attempt to save itself from imploding on Tuesday, as the members officially voted to extend invitations to six new schools to join the shrinking conference.

Although the announcement, reported by ESPN, didn’t specify the schools in question, the network reported that the sextet is believed to be Boise State, Navy, Air Force, Central Florida, SMU and Houston.

The first three schools would be joining as football-only members, while the latter trio would join for all sports.

Whether these invitations will be accepted or not remains to be seen, leaving a broad range of possibilities for what the conference will look like in a few years.

Here’s a projection of the best and worst possible outcomes for the Big East, particularly as the realignment affects basketball.

Best-Case Scenario

If all six new members accept their invitations, the football cachet being added might (with a little luck) be able to keep the Big East afloat as a major conference. That, in turn, would keep the basketball version of the Big East alive and—considering the losses it’s about to suffer—surprisingly well.

Although none of the new basketball programs (Houston, SMU or Central Florida) would make much of a dent, keeping its existing basketball membership would still leave the Big East as a major (though no longer preeminent) force in the sport.

Even after losing three strong programs in West Virginia (to the Big 12), Pitt and Syracuse (to the ACC), the Big East has power teams to spare.

After all, such a conference would still be anchored by UConn (which appears to have quieted its rumblings of departure), Louisville, Cincinnati and Georgetown, with other national contenders like Notre Dame, Villanova and St. John’s adding further clout.

The Big East wouldn’t keep setting records for tournament bids, but it would still be a major conference with all the prestige that entails.

Worst-Case Scenario

Per the ESPN report, one of Boise State’s conditions for joining any new conference is expected to be an assurance that that conference will have automatic-qualifier status with football’s BCS.

With so much debate surrounding whether the Big East deserved its AQ standing before losing Pitt, Syracuse and West Virginia, it’s entirely plausible that Boise State won’t have sufficient confidence in the conference to join.

Without Boise’s football prominence, the new configuration is very likely to fall apart, with schools like Louisville and Cincinnati probably being among the first to seek out new homes (perhaps in the SEC or Big 12).

At that point, the rest of the football members would presumably start jumping ship, leaving the basketball-only schools in the lurch.

A basketball-only Big East would still have some noteworthy names—Providence, Georgetown, Villanova—but also only seven schools in all. In turn, it would presumably have to plunder a smaller conference (say, the Atlantic-10) for more high-level teams, and the dominoes would keep falling from there.

Even if a neutered Big East continued to exist for basketball purposes, it wouldn’t have the depth or selection-committee clout of a major conference anymore. Depending on how the other conferences realigned, there’s no guarantee that such a mid-major version would be financially viable at all.

Losing a conference that’s done so much for college hoops in the last three decades would be a sad day for everyone connected with the sport.