Big East Catholic schools choose to leave conference

The new Big East will reportedly become the American Athletic Conference this year, according to ESPN’s Brett Murphy. The conference was forced to look for new branding after the “Catholic Seven” basketball schools bought the rights to “Big East” when departing to form a new league.

The confirmation comes via McMurphy’s Twitter account:

However, the school’s intention to stay next year doesn’t mask the fact that the Irish want out of the embattled league as soon as possible, according to Swarbrick:

Notre Dame decided to stick with the conference for one more season because the school does not believe that the seven departing Catholic institutions will be able to form a new league by then, per head basketball coach Mike Brey:

Last week, the Catholic Seven officially decided to leave the Big East conference amidst all the conference realignment, and decided to form their own conference. Needless to say, a conference needs to have more than seven schools in it -- and rumors are already surfacing that the conference will have 12 schools.

According to Sports Illustrated’s Pete Thamel, Xavier and Butler will “definitely” be added to the new conference, which would give the new conference nine schools. After that, Creighton and Dayton would be the next two targets for the new conference, which would bump up the total to 11.

Despite not yet playing a single game in the conference, it is ‘inevitable’ that the Boise State Broncos will leave the Big East Conference, according to a report from Pete Thamel of Sports Illustrated. This came just ahead of Dennis Dodd reporting the Mountain West has significantly altered its television deal, giving itself the chance to sell more of its games for more money.

Boise State announced a decision to join the Big East in December 2011, but wasn’t set for an official entrance to the conference until July 1, 2013. However, conference realignment and a recent departure of seven schools from the conference’s basketball competition put Boise State at a crossroads with several different options that SB Nation’s Samuel Chi broke down on Monday.

With the Big East on the precipice of implosion and no other major conference willing to accept them, Connecticut and Cincinnati are exploring the possibility of starting their own league. This according to a report by The Sporting News’ Mike DeCourcy.

The new conference would be an all-sports league that would combine the disenfranchised members of the former Big East with some of the top programs from the current Mountain West and elsewhere. The proposed members would be UConn, Cincinnati, South Florida, Memphis, Temple, Boise State, San Diego State, UNLV, New Mexico and possibly BYU or Central Florida.

In the event that the seven non-FBS playing Big East schools split from the rest of the conference, the Atlantic 10 has discussed the possibility of adding the schools and expanding the conference to 21 teams. This according to a report by Andy Katz of ESPN.com.

The A-10 currently is a 16-team conference, but Temple and Charlotte are set to leave for the Big East and Conference USA, respectively.