Has anyone given a good answer yet as to why the basketball schools don't simply split off from the football schools and start their own conference? I'm an ACC guy, so I don't know the inner workings of the Big East, but what would be wrong with the non-football schools forming their own conference that looked something like this - assuming Villanova goes FBS and joins the football schools:
Georgetown
Seton Hall
Providence
St. Johns
Depaul
Marquette
George Washington
Xavier
Umass
Butler / VCU / George Mason
That looks like a pretty good basketball conference to me. Keep it at 10 teams to have a round-robin schedule to help build some new rivalries, and then have one kick-ass three day tournament with only 2 play-in games. Do those non-football schools really need the football playing schools so bad that it keeps them from doing what otherwise seems obvious? If they split, then the football schools could form a decent conference that might still be able to keep its AQ status:
North
Connecticut
Rutgers
Temple
Villanova/Marshall
West Virginia
Navy
South
Cincinnati
Louisville
Memphis
ECU
South Florida
Central Florida
You guys know the Big East much better. Why has it stayed stuck together for so long when everything that seems to make sense says the non-football schools should split and do their own thing?