Big East Spring Meetings Today, Expansion May be in the Mix

As I'm writing this, about 215 miles Northeast of here the coaches and officials of the Big East conference are discussing conference expansion among other things. You can imagine my anxiety as the fate of future conference competition may be in the hands of these coaches. Most of the coaches support expansion, but would rather move on to 12 teams instead of stay at 10. USF Coach Skip Holtz said just that:

"There's been a lot of talk about do you go from nine to 10, which I don't know how much sense that really makes, when the Big Ten left the model of 10, the Pac-10 has left the model of 10. Both of them more or less said 'This model doesn't work. Let's go to 12.' I think we have to look hard at it. Having TCU come into the league will add an awful lot of instant energy when you look at the success they've had right now as a program. It gives you a balanced schedule with four (home) and four (road). I think we need to look hard at going to 12."

As USF fans, we should be particularly concerned that we aren't getting updates on the minute, because what happens here has a huge bearing on what our future will look like. Here are some potential candidates, and what they could mean to USF after the jump.

East Carolina: ECU is of course Skip Holtz's former team. This bears potential for a rivalry between the two schools (although the pirate ship in the USF end zone would only be fuel for ECU's trash talk). The location is great, and Holtz is already very familiar with the recruiting around the state. This could potentially be the best case in USF's eyes. If East Carolina moves up to the Big East, USF can be glad to say that they may not be the conference's worst basketball team every year.

Southern Miss: USF and Southern Miss have a bit of history dating back to their C-USA days, and that rivalry may potentially be rekindled with the addition of USM. Aside from rivalry, Hattiesburg isn't a great market, but it does provide a break in the 1193 mile gap between Tampa and Fort Worth for the drive to TCU. Do you see how good LSU, Mississippi State, Arkansas, and pretty much all the SEC schools have been? A lot of that can be credited to the fantastic recruiting ground that Mississippi/Louisiana area provides. Of course, Big East teams will probably be taking a back seat to the SEC schools most of the time, just as they will in Texas to the Big XII schools, but any talent from around there would be good for the league.

Houston: There isn't much that adding this school would do for USF, and that may be a good thing in itself. The addition of Houston would provide a second trip to Texas, which provides a second trip for recruiting. The only reason for USF to object to this is the fact that West Virginia future coach Dana Holgorsen pretty much knows that entire area, and will be bringing plenty of Texas kids to Morgantown.

Central Florida: Now the moment we've all been waiting for, UCF. Obviously, the natural standing rivalry between USF and UCF is a big push to add the Knights, but that's pretty much all they bring to the table. Adding UCF would mean an even thinner recruiting ground within the state of Florida for the entire rest of the conference, and really for the whole country.

Villanova: Nova has been on the clock for a long time, and the coaches are currently split on what to do with them. They don't have much to do with USF except for the most important thing of all: money. Currently, cash rules everything around us, and allowing Nova to jump up instead of adding a new school altogether would mean one less school there to split the TV money. If the Big East is as concerned about getting the money as they say they are, they would put a lot more thought into the pros and cons of adding Nova.

There are other schools in the mix as well, such as Appalachian State, Tulsa, Army, Navy, and I even heard a mention of BYU. Now they're getting desperate. If the Big East is serious about BYU, then they should also be serious about changing the conference's name. We don't want to look like the WAC (who is all western schools, except for Louisiana Tech). But, until the end of the day, we USF fans are just left here to bite our nails and hope UCF's name isn't called.