WVU to the Big 12 and the Impact on Cincinnati

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Twitter was a buzzin’ this morning with news that West Virginia officially joined the Big XII conference, which is basically treating Missouri’s on-the-fence attitude as if they are leaving for the SEC. They totally are by the way no matter how much the school wants to beat around the bush. Now, the Big East is left with five schools that include one longtime member (from only 1995), two former Conference-USA schools, and two former upstart division-2 programs. Here’s the options for Cincinnati:

• Hopefully the Big 12’s expansion moves in phases and Cincy along with Louisville are admitted over the coming years.
• UC stays in the Big East which adds Houston, UCF, Boise State, Air Force, etc. as planned.
• UC joins with the rest of the Big East football schools and merges with the best of the Mountain West and C-USA.

At this point, the first option is the least likely to happen right now. So what we’re looking at here is the real possibility of watching the Bearcats play SMU in front of a half empty stadium in Dallas or traveling almost two thousand miles West to the middle of no where Idaho where cows outnumber people. Is anyone really going to get excited to come out and watch Cincinnati play Houston at the Nip? Not to mention the Big East’s AQ status is in real jeopardy of being dropped now that West Virginia is gone and there’s no assurance that the Big East/MWC/C-USA merger will obtain an AQ bid. Can you say ‘C-USA part 2’?

At least John Marinatto and his basketball cartel are happy.