Big East Splitting Into Two Conferences; “Catholic 7” To Retain Name

Today, the Big East officially announced that it would be dividing into two conferences next season, commissioner Michael Aresco announced on Friday, with the split taking effect on July 1st.

Seven of the leagues schools that are affiliated with the Catholic Church, dubbed by the media as the “Catholic 7,” will retain the rights to the Big East name plus the rights to use Madison Square Garden for their annual basketball tournament, which historically has been among the most-watched in the country.

The remained of the schools will splinter, merge, and eventually form a new conference, whose name has not been decided on yet. These schools will get the majority ($100 million) of the $110 million Big East reserve fund that has been collected primarily from exit fees paid by several recently-departed member institutions.

In a joint statement by the presidents of the seven institutions who will remain the Big East, they said: “We are grateful to Commissioner Michael Aresco for spearheading an agreement that truly represents the best path forward for each of our great institutions and the thousands of student-athletes who compete for our schools annually. It is a great credit to Mike, our colleagues, and all involved that we were able to work through a host of highly complex and time-sensitive issues in such a short period of time. We are pleased that we reached this amicable and mutually-beneficial separation by approaching each issue with a spirit of cooperation and shared respect.”

The move was ripe to happen now, with so much change already existing in the league. It had grown from its original birth as a conference for academically-elite northeastern schools into a nationwide conference that was trying desperately to remain relevant in football. The NCAA had already announced that the Big East was to lose their status as an “automatic bid” when a football playoff begins in 2014-2015.

The Catholic 7, however, are very basketball-centered and the new Big East won’t sponsor football. That’s a huge, philisophical shift for a conference that fought hard to add schools like Houston and East Carolina for predominantly football reasons.

Swimming

So now, what our readers will really be focused on, how does this affect swimming? No firm details have come out about the Olympic sports yet (we hope to speak to someone in the Big East office early next week) as football, basketball, and a whole heap of money have been the focus. Based on what we know now, however, here’s what the two leagues are expected to look like (noting teams that are slated to leave in 2014) for SWIMMING ONLY:

New, unnamed conference

Cincinnati (M&W)
UConn (M&W)
Houston (Women)
SMU (M&W)
Tulane (2014 – Women)
Louisville (One Season Only – M&W)
Rutgers (One Season Only – Women)

Big East (“Catholic 7”)

Georgetown (M&W)
Providence (M&W)
Seton Hall (M&W)
Villanova (M&W)

As you can see, neither conference will come up as robust as the old Big East was, though the unnamed conference (which is technically continuing the old conference, though not with the name) has a few more teams. The University of Houston, for what it’s worth, feels that they are likely to be the hosts of that conference championship meet until 2015.

The new Big East will struggle to make a good conference meet, so look for some creative solutions to come out of that league. They are still seeking to add more members (Butler, with a women’s team, is rumored to be among the candidates), so once those teams are set we’ll have to see where things shake out.