The once powerful basketball conference has taken a turn for the worst, as its most prestigious members, Villanova, Seton Hall, Marquette, Georgetown, Providence, St. John’s, DePaul announced they would leave the Big East Conference.

I personally think that conference realignment should stop immediately. It should have ended with Nebraska going to the Big Ten, which I think was a good fit and not a big loss for the Big 12, and Colorado, who is awkwardly in the Pac-12 conference, but didn’t make the Big 12 shed tears over.

Then Pittsburgh and Syracuse announced they would go to the Atlantic Coast Conference. I think that for the Atlantic Coast Conference (which has not been known for its basketball) made a mistake, because Pittsburgh and Syracuse take away from the prestigiousness that the conference has in Olympic sports, such as soccer. But then to add Notre Dame, and Louisville completely destroyed the prestigious ACC reputation.

I imagine that the seven Catholic schools of the Big East will make a new conference, and maybe add three to five more teams. Candidates for this new conference could be other Catholic or Christian private schools like Creighton, Loyola (MD), Loyola (Chicago), Siena, Fairfield, and Iona. This new conference would be primarily be a basketball conference, because most of the schools lack football teams.

The other big question about the Big East splitting up is the future of Cincinnati and Connecticut. The schools are both public schools with decent football teams that would be a good addition to any conference. If I could change the conferences right now, I would throw Notre Dame into the new Catholic conference, since they are independent in football anyway and put UConn into the ACC. As for Cincinnati, the best they could hope for is a Power 4 conference offer, such as the Big Ten or Big 12, but realistically, I see them going into Conference-USA.

Conference realignment needs to stop, when you have schools like Boise State and San Diego State making deals to go into the Big East conference when they are located in states like Idaho and California, you have to think that it is getting out of hand.  Maryland going to the Big Ten was a wrong move for a nearly perfect Big Ten conference, and then the Big Ten decides to throw Rutgers (located in New Jersey) into the conference just because of football. I always thought of the Big Ten as a midwestern conference, but I can’t anymore when they have schools located in the northeast. I think that the NCAA might make regulations for these conference realignments before we have schools like Florida, Minnesota, California and North Carolina all in the same conference with athletes traveling six hours across the country for a basketball game when they have class the next day.