OT: Memphis to Big East in 2013
Coach Rick Pitino got his wish. The Louisville basketball coach indicated awhile back that he wanted Memphis to join the Big East.
The Tigers will join the Big East for all sports starting in 2013.
More details can be found here.
For those wondering, barring further changes, the Big East could be broken down as such (for football):
West Division
Boise State, Cincinnati, Houston, Louisville, San Diego State, and SMU
East Division
Connecticut, Pittsburgh (departing in 2014), Rutgers, Syracuse (departing in 2014), UCF, and USF.
Where does Memphis go? Navy joins in 2015, FYI.
For basketball:
Cincinnati, Connecticut, DePaul, Georgetown, Houston, Louisville, Marquette, Memphis, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh (departing in 2014), Providence, Rutgers, SMU, St. John's, Seton Hall, Syracuse (departing in 2014), UCF, USF, Villanova.
19 teams. Don't be surprised if that is an answer to a Final Jeopardy question or something.
February 7th, 2012 at 5:21 PM ^
and football in the Big East just got worse
February 7th, 2012 at 6:03 PM ^
February 8th, 2012 at 1:17 AM ^
Football in the Big East really can't get much worse to begin with, now that its only consistent national player, WVU (and even they're not that good) has packed up and left.
How ironic would it be if the Big East lost its BCS status after Boise joins?
February 7th, 2012 at 5:26 PM ^
When are they changing their conference's name to the Continental Conference or something similar?
February 7th, 2012 at 5:26 PM ^
just merge with the Big 8 and the MAC and get it over with.
February 7th, 2012 at 6:21 PM ^
Well what about the SWC then gen-ius? Who's gonna take all of them?
Or wait... I'm confused.
-Chet
February 7th, 2012 at 5:27 PM ^
If WVU successfully gets out of the Big East this year, I'd expect Pitt and Syracuse to be out by 2013, when all those other schools join. They're going to be at an odd number waiting on Navy. But if they add someone, then they're at an odd number (13 at that) once Navy joins. I think this is it barring any other defections, or league explosion.
February 7th, 2012 at 5:27 PM ^
lol well that conference sure did fall apart. Seems like a slight upgrade to the MAC now
February 7th, 2012 at 5:28 PM ^
February 7th, 2012 at 5:36 PM ^
Not until July 1, 2014. So for 2013 they are in the Big East, as of right now. Things may change, but last I heard they weren't planning on leaving until then.
February 7th, 2012 at 5:42 PM ^
My guess is they just don't wanna deal with litigation - let West Virginia play in the lawyers' pigpen instead of them - and will leave the Biggish Eastish whenever WVU is cleared to.
February 7th, 2012 at 5:48 PM ^
I don't disagree with you, but as it stands, they are in the BE until 2014. Clearly they won't leave in 2012 (per the ACC), but they may be in for 2013.
Assuming they leave a year early, that messes with the Big East's plans to hold a conference championship, as they would only have 11 teams. Something tells me the Big East would fight to keep one of the two, if not both, unless they get another team to join.
February 7th, 2012 at 5:29 PM ^
February 7th, 2012 at 5:54 PM ^
Cincy and Louisville are going to have some traveling to do. Kind of unfair if you ask me. Anyway, all of these additions don't really make the league stronger, but they were necessary to keep it alive in football. I'd be slightly surprised if the conference kept its AQ status.
February 7th, 2012 at 8:11 PM ^
There won't be AQ conferences after 2013. Hopefully we go back to conference contracts and the Big Ten's playoff plan. In that case, Boise probably would have helped itself, but only marginally. They won't sniff a Rose/Sugar/Fiesta/Orange Bowl again though, IMO (after 2013).
February 7th, 2012 at 5:54 PM ^
...that these schools aren't waiting until the end of 2013 first to see how the BCS formula would change - depending on how things go they'll be switching conferences to be even worse off than before.
February 7th, 2012 at 5:57 PM ^
Thry actually think they can just pretty much add anyone to the league and they'll retain their auto-bid in football. They have no choice, but if for any reason they retain an auto-bid in football with that awful school roster, it will be the worst decision in a history of bad BCS decisions. Guess Boise is hoping so.
February 7th, 2012 at 6:17 PM ^
Michigan should come back with a JV team, the Big East would pick them up.
From Russell Bellomy & Thomas Rawls...to Isaiah Bell and Terrence Talbott, we could win some games!
February 7th, 2012 at 6:23 PM ^
The Big East is going to be so bad at football. We don't know how Boise will be without Kellen Moore but I would think Peterson will continue his success and they should be very good in the Big East. Louisville and Cincy may be able to compete with them but who knows at this point. The addition of Memphis is nice for bball though especially since they are losing two good programs in Syracuse and Pitt.
February 7th, 2012 at 7:04 PM ^
God, make it stop.
Even with that setup, the conference should still lose their automatic bid.
February 7th, 2012 at 9:43 PM ^
Especially with that setup.
February 7th, 2012 at 7:19 PM ^
please wake me up when it's all over and settled. Big East facepalm engaged.
February 7th, 2012 at 7:57 PM ^
Memphis isn't a football school, and never will be. Basketball fuels their engine, and they are now part of a conference that will sufficiently prepare them to fulfill their potential in the NCAA Tournament. The problem, though, is that when they don't have someone like the unctuous Coach Cal helping them bend the rules in recruiting, they can't quite get enough talent to be a Final Four caliber team.
At any rate, it looks like some very silly things are going to start happening with conference realignment, possibly as early as this year. I don't mean "silly" on the level of what has already happened, but I mean a more drastic unheaval in which at least one major conference becomes a casualty.
February 8th, 2012 at 7:26 AM ^
I am oficially changing the name of that conference from "The Big East" to "The Big - Hey, You Wanna Join Too? Great!"
February 8th, 2012 at 8:38 AM ^
Honestly, I thought they were already in the Big East. I've completely lost track of this stuff.
February 8th, 2012 at 9:53 AM ^
Thank God we're getting out of that shitshow.
Talk now is that if WVU tells the Big East to go to hell (they're going to be on the Big XII schedules), that Pitt and then Syracuse will do the same.
Our issue is that with TCU and WVU expected to be on our schedules that we now have two open dates. We already have 3 BCS conference teams including USC in our non-conference schedule and a 1-AA. There's just not enough available teams to go around, and adding another 1-AA is a non-starter since it wouldn't count toward bowl-eligibility.
But if we go to the ACC tomorrow, 8 game conference schedule and everything is right.
The Big East would be left with 5 teams. They can go play a home-and-home schedule for eight games and be full too.
I just want out of that shitshow.
February 8th, 2012 at 10:48 AM ^
The ACC keeps stating that Syracuse and Pittsburgh are not in for 2012. Are you hearing something differently? With the ACC releasing schedules within the next month, there may not be enough time to include the teams, especially with the legal ramifications.
With that said, there are teams left who need OOC games, its just a matter of pairing up weeks (although the Big East may schedule conference games around the OOC games, rather than making the teams schedule OOC games around the conference ones).
Here are the teams who need additional OOC games (with the number needed in parenthesis): Arkansas (1); Boise State (1); Florida State (1); Hawaii (1); Middle Tennessee (1); Missouri (2); Nebraska (1); Nevada (1); New Mexico (1); North Texas (1); Oklahoma (2); Oklahoma State (1); Texas A&M (1); UAB (1); UL Lafayette (1).
Boise State, Hawaii, Nevada, and New Mexico can elect to add a game due to the Hawaii Exemption, but they don't have to. South Alabama added a fifth OOC game due to the Hawaii Exemption.
I know adding another FCS game isn't ideal, but Air Force, NC State, and Wyoming had two FCS opponents in 2011 and that didn't stop any of them from making a bowl game (then again, Eastern Michigan had two as well). Worst case scenario, if Big East temas can't make a deal with any of the previously mentioned teams, they will add a FCS opponent (even if they already have one) so they can at least get the gate revenue.
February 8th, 2012 at 11:03 AM ^
The word is that the ACC has two schedules, one with SU and Pitt included, one without. WVU and the Big East have a Thursday deadline for mediation so this is why nothing has been released one way or another. What we've heard is that the deal will be $24 million for WVU to get out this year.
The problem with those open dates is that most are in our already-scheduled non-conference dates. So matching up with open dates we have, you have very few possibilites. And you'd have seven Bg East teams looking to fill two games each. So there's 14 open dates to fill and already scheduled non-conference games where the openings for the other schools are in the same non-conference dates.
Unfortunately, the open dates that the Big East teams would need to fill would be in October and November rather than those schools' open dates which are mostly in September.