Moments ago, ESPN’s Andy Katz and The New York Times’ Pete Thamel tweeted that the Pac-12 will not expand beyond 12 teams. This news follows a conference call of the presidents of the conference’s member schools that took place earlier tonight.

So, now where are we? If the Pac-12 stays put, does that open things up for the Big 12 and Big East to expand and attempt to push the Pac-12 into a position of lesser relevance? Are Oklahoma and Texas now blowing up the phones at the SEC offices, pleading for one of what appears to be two remaining spots, or will Oklahoma now have to reconsider sticking with the Big 12 after issuing the conference its bizarre ultimatum on Tuesday? Will Missouri tell the SEC thanks-but-no-thanks? More on this as things develop. What a soap opera this has been, and continues to be.

If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.

News

• Calhoun on expansion: UConn needs to do what’s best for UConn:  Jim Calhoun offers his thoughts on what UConn should do. (The UConn Blog)
• Jim Boeheim Grinning & Bearing It, Barely…: “Obviously, Jim Boeheim hates the idea of Syracuse going to the ACC. You can give me all the official statements you want. We all know they’re B.S. and the idea of SU playing Clemson & Florida State instead of Georgetown and Villanova makes him vomit.” (Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician)
• Jerime Anderson Reinstated: The senior guard was suspended two games for stealing a laptop. (Bruins Nation)
• Maryland (and Duke?) Wants the ACC to Keep Expanding: “Per the Jeff Barker at the Baltimore Sun, the Terrapins’ athletic department is partnering with – get this – Duke, in privately pushing for the addition of two more teams, thereby making the ACC the first conference to go to 16.” (Testudo Times)
• UM Hoops to Host Crisler Arena Open House: “The University of Michigan men’s and women’s basketball programs will host an open house on Friday (Sept. 23) from 5-8 p.m. at Crisler Arena.” (UM Hoops)

Daniel Connors is a full-time student at Syracuse University and an RTC contributor.

Monday morning was like any other morning here at Syracuse. The sun rose, the birds chirped, and the professors lectured. But something was different. The Syracuse student body woke up to an e-mail that the university will be joining the ACC.  Only 72 hours earlier the idea of Syracuse and Pittsburgh leaving the Big East had not even been leaked. Conference expansion had been a newsworthy topic of discussion, but this news seemingly came out of nowhere with the New York Times’ Pete Thamel breaking the story Friday night. The Big Ten had rumored interest in the Orange, but Texas A&M and West Virginia were the headliners in potential switcharoos, not us. We were happy in the Big East, for now at least. I guess we thought wrong.

Can This Game Really Disappear From the Schedule?

Rivalries are at the heart of college sports. As much fun as it is for us to cheer on the Orange, it is just as fun to hate the Hoyas and Huskies. So naturally, Syracuse fans and students are questioning what will happen to these longstanding rivalries that have become an integral part of the student experience at Syracuse.  “It’s a big move that’s been coming and I’m excited for the future,” Matt Shadle, a Syracuse sophomore said. “Hopefully we can retain the rivalries through out-of-conferences games. If not, new rivalries will have to be formed.”

Although Syracuse will no longer have conference games against familiar foes like UConn, Georgetown, and Villanova, Orange fans are excited about hosting Duke and North Carolina in the Carrier Dome.  Ben Glidden, a junior at Syracuse, said, “I think it’s a smart move for Syracuse … it adds a lot of excitement to basketball playing with the likes of Duke and UNC.”  Students that I spoke to all mirrored that opinion and look forward to clashing with the two storied programs from Tobacco Road.  Phillip Thomas, the starting safety on the Syracuse football team also seemed optimistic  about the move, citing an increase in competition by stating, “It’s great for our program to be able to face UNC, Virginia Tech, Miami, FSU, and others.” Thomas added that he “couldn’t be happier.”

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Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West and Pac-12 conferences and a frequent contributor.

With this weekend’s out-of-the-blue bombshell that Pittsburgh and Syracuse were leaving the Big East behind in order to accept membership in the ACC, the wave of conference realignment that is sweeping the nation has reached critical mass. Even with last year’s moves turning the Pac-10 into the Pac-12, adding a twelfth team to the Big Ten (among other things), and this summer’s talk of Texas A&M bolting for the SEC, there was still a chance that all of this would settle down and we’d be looking at a conference landscape that mostly looked pretty similar. No more. While the Big 12 has been on a death watch for weeks now, all of a sudden the Big East has jumped its place in line and the conference is scrambling to maintain some sense of order while its member institutions look for soft landing spots.  And with A&M to the SEC seemingly an inevitability, and with Oklahoma and Oklahoma State at least (if not Texas and Texas Tech as well) likely headed to the Pac-(fill-in-your-choice-of-numbers-here), the era of superconferences appears to be upon us. So, before things change again, let’s take a quick look around the nation at the conferences as they stand today, how they could change tomorrow and how that will effectively alter the college basketball landscape.

courtesy: The Football God

Big East

Today: TCU joins the conference next season (although apparently TCU and the Mountain West have had a conversation or two in recent days about how good they had things before the Big East got in the way), with Pittsburgh and Syracuse as of now bound to the conference for this year and the next two (with buyout negotiations likely still to be considered), putting the league at 17 basketball teams (nine in football) for 2012-13 and 2013-14, then down to 15 (seven in football) starting in 2014-15.

Tomorrow: Those numbers above are assuming that the ACC doesn’t snap up Connecticut and Rutgers (the two most mentioned names) and West Virginia isn’t able to find safe refuge as the 14^th member of the SEC. In short, football in the Big East is in severe trouble, as are some of the historic rivalries in one of the nation’s premier college basketball conferences. If the ACC picks off a couple more Big East football programs, the conference has to start over more or less from scratch, with Louisville, South Florida and Cincinnati left scrambling for a home. If there is a way for the Big East to stave off football extinction, it is likely at the hands of the death of the Big 12. If Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas and Texas Tech take up with the Pacific Coast, maybe the Big East snaps up Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State and Missouri, and can carry on as a (hopefully) rebranded league.

Basketball: Nevertheless, there could still be a strong basketball conference here, regardless of what happens to Big East football. If Georgetown, Villanova, St. John’s, Marquette, Seton Hall, Providence, DePaul, and Notre Dame want, they could maintain a pretty solid eight-team conference among themselves, (provided ND isn’t somehow pressured into joining the Big Ten), or even snap up a handful of teams from the Atlantic 10 (Xavier, Dayton, St. Joseph’s, etc.) and carry on that way. Still, while hoops fans can console themselves with the prospect of North Carolina, Syracuse, Duke and Pittsburgh matching up with each other on Semifinal Saturday of the ACC Tournament, the sad fact is that the spectacle that is the Big East Tournament at the Garden is about to take a major hit.

ACC

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1. We absolutely love the rant that Jim Boeheim went on yesterday as he spoke to the Monday Morning Quarterback Club in Birmingham. We linked the article by Jon Solomon of The Birmingham News in our Tumblr feed yesterday (see right), but the thing is just so full of great quotes — and what sounds like frank disgust — regarding conference realignment and specifically his school moving to the ACC. Another morsel: “Where would you want to go to to a tournament for five days? Let’s see: Greensboro, North Carolina or New York City? Jeez, let me think about that one and get back to you.”
2. Love among the Big East and Big 12 ruins? More like survival. The honchos from each of those jilted conferences are now engaged in talks to evaluate the possibility that they could combine what’s left of their leagues into a new one and still exist as after the conference shuffling is all through. Anyone ready for a little Seton Hall-Baylor? Maybe some Cincinnati-Kansas State? Actually, the matchups aren’t that bad, but we’re again reminded of how people putting these conferences together don’t want to face geographic reality. Football teams will be unaffected, playing their one game a week, but what are basketball teams going to do? Go on MLB-type road trips where they knock off a few games in a row against their most distant conference-mates? See, there’s this thing called going to class…
3. San Diego State sophomore guard Jamaal Franklin had generated some positive chatter over the summer, with his teammates anointing him the most improved Aztec on the squad. He only averaged 7.4 MPG last year, contributing 2.6 PPG and 1.7 RPG, but Steve Fisher seemed to trust him more and more as the season progressed. Franklin might still have that breakout soph season, but he may have created a bit of a hurdle for himself over the weekend. Early Sunday morning, Franklin was pulled over and arrested on suspicion of DUI. As if that weren’t enough, he only turned 20 a couple of months ago. No comment from Fisher as of yet.
4. OK, back to conference realignment, because we know you can’t get enough. West Virginia is one of the schools that seems to be caught both geographically and athletically in the middle of all this, with prognosticators seemingly placing them in a different conference every week. Frank Giardina of West Virginia Metro News has a few opinions on the matter, including 1) the WVU-Pittsburgh football rivalry is dead and Pitt would love to extract themselves from it, 2) WVU will move to the SEC, 3) TCU will never play a single second in the Big East, and 4) the late great hall of fame coach and Big East founder Dave Gavitt was no friend to basketball programs at WVU, Rutgers, and Penn State, and Gavitt’s emphasis on making the Big East a basketball-centered conference is exactly what’s killing it now. Thoughts?
5. Meanwhile, while everyone in the Northeast (and the Midwest, and a good deal of the South) wonders what conference they’ll belong to in a year or two, Ben Howland out at UCLA just goes about his business in putting together one heck of a recruiting class from the class of 2012. He had already signed (rankings via the ESPNU 100) #50 Jordan Adams, a 6’5”, 210-pound small forward from Georgia, and #72 Dominic Artis, a 5’11” PG from California. Then, last night, #5 Kyle Anderson tweet-committed to the Bruins, and it’s worth noting that Anderson, another SF at 6’7” and 210-pounds, is from New Jersey. Did all this conference instability have anything to do with his decision? Probably not, since UCLA is an impressive draw all by itself, but hey…it probably didn’t help matters. Something to keep in mind: the #1 player in the nation, 6’6”, 215-pound SF Shabazz Muhammad, apparently has the Bruins in his final five.

After initially suspending senior guard Jerime Anderson indefinitely following his arrest on July 26 for an on-campus laptop theft, UCLA has announced that they were reducing his suspension to two games in light on Anderson pleading guilty to two misdemeanor counts (appropriation of lost property and trespassing). According to the deal that Anderson received from the court he will have to serve 300 hours of community service and if he stays out of trouble for the next two years his the appropriation of lost property charge will be expunged from his record.

Anderson Will Have to Sit Out Two Games (Credit: Anne Cusack /Los Angeles Times)

Anderson, who averaged 5.1 PPG and 2.6 APG as a back-up to Lazeric Jones last season, gained a measure of notoriety for his reported involvement as the host of a large party soon after his initial suspension (he later removed his name away from the party and reportedly did not attend). In a statement released by the school, Ben Howland said, “Now that the legal proceedings in conjunction with Jerime’s arrest have been finalized, I am re-instating him to the team with a two-game suspension. Jerime has been very remorseful in acknowledging his mistake and accepting responsibility for his actions. I believe he has learned a valuable lesson.”

As a result of the suspension, Anderson will miss UCLA’s exhibition game against Cal State San Bernandino on November 6 and their regular season opener against Loyola Marymount on November 11. Once he returns, Anderson and the rest of the Bruins will have two more games to get used to playing together before they face their first true test of the season, a match-up against either Kansas or Georgetown on November 22.

John Swofford must feel like the prettiest girl in school on this glorious Monday.  Not only did he receive a huge heap of slobbering attention from two of the more attractive gents in his class over the weekend (Mr. Pittsburgh and Mr. Syracuse), but like any good future Junior Leaguer, he’s letting everyone in the hallways know that he has numerous other options.  On Sunday during the announcement of two more Big East schools joining the ACC, Swofford alluded to the fact that a “double-digit” number of universities had already submitted applications to the ACC.  It’s a widely known secret that one of those applications hails from Storrs, Connecticut, but news released today begins to unravel who those other schools might be.  Would you be surprised if one of them doesn’t even have a major football program?  You shouldn’t:

Villanova is Confirmed as Another ACC Applicant (A. Lyons/Getty)

ACC Commissioner John Swofford said during a teleconference Sunday the league received more than 10 applications from schools hoping to join the league. Orlando Sentinel sources confirmed multiple Big East members applied to join the league, including Villanova.

That’s right.  The rats are all fleeing the sinking ship known as the Big East Conference, and even schools with no FBS (I-A) football programs are taking their shots.  VU, coming off a national semifinalist season in 2010,  has an excellent FCS (I-AA) football program, but it would seem a major leap of faith on the part of any BCS-level conference to pull a burgeoning program out of its hat when there are so many others already established.  Still, it clearly shows that schools are scrambling for anything right now, fearful of being relegated to the also-ran conferences that will weigh down the entire school’s reputation and cachet throughout the collegiate sporting landscape.

So who else might have sent its application into 4512 Weybridge Lane in Greensboro over the last 72 hours?  Let’s play speculation theater:

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Zach Hayes is an editor, contributor and bracketologist for Rush the Court.

In April of 2009, Sean Miller accepted the head coaching position at the University of Arizona. During the 29 months since that hiring, one can make a realistic argument that Sean Miller has done the best job of any coach in America.

Miller took over a team that finished a lackluster 17-19 in Pac-10 play in the previous two years under Kevin O’Neill and Russ Pennell, had their expected roster gutted following the coaching switch and was mired in a program malaise that hadn’t lingered around the McKale Center since Lute Olson first took the job in the mid-1980s. In just two years time, Miller’s launched Arizona into unexpected heights so soon and so dramatically: a full-on pasting of Duke in last year’s Sweet 16, the grooming of the #2 overall pick in the NBA Draft and an incredible haul of blue chip prospects headed to Tucson to keep the fire burning into the future.

The program has reached a point where, despite the losses of their superstar forward Derrick Williams and point guard Lamont Jones, Arizona is favored to claim the Pac-12 crown in 2011-12 over the likes of UCLA, California and Washington. That speaks to the depth that Miller has assembled at Arizona not too long after the losses of Chase Budinger and Jordan Hill left the program facing a rebuilding project too steep for the likes of John Calipari, Jamie Dixon, Mark Few and even Tim Floyd to take on.

With apologies to Brad Stevens, there’s not a coach I’d rather have leading my program into the next decade than Miller.

Sean Miller has revived a stagnant Arizona program

Team Outlook: Although the loss of Williams is mammoth, a player so efficient last season he nearly caused Ken Pomeroy’s head to explode, there’s a nice blend of veterans and talented freshman to expect only a minimal drop in offensive production. Junior Solomon Hill provided a preview to the Arizona faithful of his potential during a 16/8 on 7-12 FG performance against Texas in last year’s second round and has the versatility to play either forward spot at 6’6. Kyle Fogg should be shooting 2,000 jumpers per day over the offseason after shooting 37% from the field as a junior, especially because he could be their most frequent gunner in 2011-12. Kevin Parrom finished in the top-50 in offensive rating among role players as a sophomore and is one of the most underrated swingmen in the nation. Jordin Mayes finished second in the conference in three-point shooting at 45% as a freshman and really came on strong in March. Freshman Josiah Turner could start at the point from day one after Jones’ transferred to Iona over the offseason. Whether this team can blend on the floor with a rookie floor general and sans Williams are legitimate concerns.

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If you are interested in participating in our ATB2 feature, send in your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com. We will add to this post throughout the day as the submissions come in so keep on sending them.

ACC Expansion

• Wake Up And It’s A New Conference: “It is official. Pitt and Syracuse are moving to the ACC […] The exact timeline is unclear. Big East rules call for a 27 month notice period — and the ACC stressed that they would abide the Big East bylaws. This may mean, a lot like what went down in the Big 12 last year that Pitt and Syracuse are going to have to surrender some extra money to the Big East to make it happen by next year.  We shall see on that front.” (Pitt Blather)
• Syracuse University Is An ACC School, Officially: “I went to sleep Friday night safe and secure in the knowledge that the Syracuse Orange had a home in the Big East for as long as they wanted. I woke up Sunday morning confused and yet even more secure in the knowledge that Syracuse now has a home in the ACC for as long as they both shall live.” (Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician)
• Syracuse & Pitt To ACC: I Mean, Where Do I Begin?: Breaking down the meaning of the move. (Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician)
• Realignment is real, and UConn searches for a life raft in the ACC: A look at Connecticut’s options. (The UConn Blog)
• It’s Official: Syracuse and Pitt Join the ACC. What Are Georgetown’s Options?: A look at Georgetown’s next potential move(s). (Casual Hoya)
• Pitt, Syracuse elope with the ACC; why St. John’s should worry: “A number of other schools have reportedly expressed interest in becoming members of the Atlantic Coast Conference, who also raised their exit fee to $20 million to assure their members won’t be poached by the Southeastern Conference (or anyone else). Texas is rumored to have inquired about the ACC, and the ACC reports that a total of ten teams have reached out with inquiries. I have been hoping to not have to write about conference expansion, but it’s at the Red Storm’s door. This is bad news for the monster that is Big East basketball, for St. John’s, and possibly even for the Red Storm’s resurgence.” (Rumble in the Garden)
• The Big East Coast Conference?: Thoughts on the expansion from a current ACC member perspective. (Tar Heel Fan)
• Why Maryland and Pittsburgh Should be Rivals: Looking at one potential new rivalry that could come from the ACC’s expansion. (Testudo Times)
• Texas to the Pac-12 Reportedly Gaining Steam: “While Texas to the ACC was the rumor du jour last week, that all seemed to change over the weekend with the Pac-12 once again looking like a legitimate option. At issue for Larry Scott and the Pac-12 has been the league’s desire for equal revenue sharing and ownership of each school’s third-tier rights, exactly the rights that ESPN owns with the Longhorn Network. So what has changed?” (Burnt Orange Nation)

It’s a new week, and a new college basketball landscape. As last week closed, our game continued to be slowly and forcibly moved toward the feared four-headed superconference era, with the Pac-12, SEC, Big Ten, and…wait, who was the fourth supposed to be? The Big East? The ACC? It was likely that those two would have had to fight it out (or combine) for survival, but the first blow struck in that conflict may turn out to be the killing shot. Over the weekend and seemingly from nowhere, the ACC made a pre-emptive strike on (sucker-punched?) the Big East, absorbing Syracuse and Pittsburgh like the Germans taking Danzig. The Big East — at least the glorious version of it we’ve enjoyed all our lives — is in serious trouble, with the code called and the crash cart on the way. On Friday, we were all talking about how those ineligible St. John’s recruits would affect their Big East campaign for 2011-12. We never thought we’d wake up today doubting there would even BE a Big East in three years. Is the Big East now the Big Deceased? Or, as Dan Wetzel tweeted, will it survive but simply be “less big and less east?” All that in mind, you can guess what dominates the M5 this morning:

1. We first heard news of the defections of Syracuse and Pittsburgh via CBSSports.com’s Brett McMurphy. On Saturday he also speculated on how he thinks the rest of the conferences will respond, as well as how those football-independent (but Big East basketball) Irish of Notre Dame might have their hands forced into choosing a new home. By the way, Coach K is totally on board with this whole expansion thing, is proud of the ACC leadership on the matter, and wants two more (Hi, Connecticut and Rutgers!). Not so keen on the idea are ESPN’s Dana O’Neil and evidently some guy named Jim freakin’ Boeheim.
2. It’s tough not to be a little disillusioned after reading Sunday’s article by Dennis Dodd, another CBSSports.com college football scribe, but that doesn’t mean his assertion is wrong regarding how difficult it is to find an honest man among those who run college sports. Some interesting takes therein, from Louisville AD Tom Jurich and an unnamed Big East source, especially. If you doubt that the conference realignment mess is about pride, power, and money, click the link above and get back to us when you’re done.
3. The case of Pittsburgh is an interesting one, because the Panthers happen to be led by one Jamie Dixon. An RTC favorite, the man unquestionably has one of the more clever minds in the basketball coaching biz, and he’s a young coach who — sorry, Pitt supporters — won’t be a Panther forever. Could the move to the ACC also be the thing that soon prompts Dixon to accept an offer from one of his many suitors? Sporting News’ Mike DeCourcy spells out how the defection from the Big East might sound the death knell for Pittsburgh basketball.
4. Since we referenced them earlier, what do you do if you’re Louisville? The ACC has its own agenda and would probably prefer to add UConn and Rutgers. Would the Big Ten or SEC welcome U of L? How proactive can the Cardinals actually be? Can they afford to wait until the Big East disintegrates, or see if it survives by adding schools that could actually turn a profit? And if the conference survives, who does it go after? TCU is on the way (*forehead slap*). But on who else should the Big East set its sights? East Carolina? Xavier?!? BUTLER??? [Ed. Note: Butler. In the Big East. Whoa, time out on the floor. Getting…dizzy…may pass out…]
5. The final item here far supersedes in importance anything mentioned above, though the irony cannot be ignored. The moves out of the Big East by Syracuse and Pittsburgh first came to light on Friday, and people quickly began speculating as to whether it signalled the end of the conference. On Friday, Dave Gavitt, the man considered to be the founder of the Big East Conference, died at his home in Rhode Island of congestive heart failure, aged 73. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family today. Requiescat in pace, sir.