Making Sense of the Big East Breakdown: Is Tulane Really to Blame?

Two weeks ago, President Cowen lifted a Big East flag as the Green Wave prepared to join a major conference, following the trend of bigger Conference USA teams including Memphis and UCF. For the Tulane faithful, this was likely the biggest announcement in some years for a fairly stagnant sports program.

But what a two weeks it has been since then. Yesterday, as we all know, the seven Catholic schools of the Big East... well, let's call it the Big East BT (Before Tulane), for clarity... announced they are collectively on their way out. Whether they will dissolve the league (they have the power to do that with seven votes) or allow it to exist is still up in the air.

Anyway you slice it, this is a huge blow to the momentum Tulane gained from what once looked like a major upgrade. The chance to play Villanova, Georgetown, etc. in basketball pretty much instantly gave our basketball program more credibility, which likely would have translated to a whole new recruiting landscape. Unfortunately, it seems like that is no more.

What's worse, the ESPN-storyline places the blame on Tulane. Marquette's Athletic Director (and an anonymous power player as well) cited the Tulane invitation as the final straw. They could make do with solid Memphis and UCF teams, as well as a new-look SMU Mustangs program led by Larry Brown, but the Green Wave was their sticking point.

Here's Larry Williams of Marquette on the move:

“I was not pleased that we issued an invitation to Tulane without any diligence to what effect that would have on our basketball product, the draw on our RPI and other such things. I was disappointed that I wasn’t able to participate as a member of the conference in the deliberation that went into adding that."

Ehhh. Not a show of confidence in Tulane, obviously, but (as ESPN later blogged), a big part of this is that the bread-and-butter Big East teams were apparently not really consulted about the Tulane addition rather than being angry that Tulane had a chance to join. I can imagine that adding Tulane without any consultation seemed like a pretty desperate move on the league's part, especially in light of the conference's success riding on the shoulders of the non-basketball bunch like Marquette. Not good.

The future of the Big East isn't clear. This is especially true on the football side, where teams like Boise State and East Carolina are also coming into the picture. That said, Tulane released its statement yesterday saying it will remain committed to the Big East in 2014. Whatever Big East that is...