Big East Basketball Schools Want Out Of Conference They Ruined

It's the ultimate irony that the basketball-only schools could ultimately be the ones to break the Big East Conference. Upset with the direction of the conference and with a TV deal looming that's sure to be far less than it could have been, the league's seven non-football members (Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, St. John's, Seton Hall, Villanova and DePaul) are apparently considering breaking away from the conference to form a new one, possibly with other basketball-first schools.

Despite the predictable, hacky reaction by Dana O'Neil (seriously, I predicted this article just before I saw it), let's make one thing clear. The Big East basketball schools have no one to blame for this mess but themselves. The Providence-based league and its Providence-based leadership favored the basketball schools for decades, always assuming that football would do its part and pay in its share so that tiny schools like Providence, Seton Hall and St. John's could thrive in the big boys world long after they didn't belong there.

Syracuse, Pitt and West Virginia will always get the blame for being the ones who left but they left because they were forced to. So don't give me the "poor, powerless Big East Catholic schools" routine. They are not victims. They are reaping with they sowed.

I guess I'm just shocked that adding Tulane wasn't the clincher we all thought it would be...

Anyway, the irony of it all is that if they do decide to leave, not only will they get the chance to build a really solid new league but they won't have to pay an exit fee. How bout that shit?

But if they do decide to leave as a group, they will not have to pay an exit fee. A rule that was put in place almost a decade ago when the Big East lost Virginia Tech, Miami and then Boston College to the ACC, stipulates that should the football or basketball segments of the league want to break away as a group no exit fees will be imposed.

If only Syracuse, Pitt, WVU, Louisville and Rutgers pow-wowed beforehand...

Meanwhile, the Big East released its 2013 football schedule today and it's a doozy. In case you don't think the conference is still bitter about all the defections, note that both Louisville and Rutgers are traveling to Boise State. Also, Rutgers is going to be logging more mileage than any other school in the East Division. It says everything about the new Big East that the Texas school will do the least traveling.