"Catholic 7" Hoops Schools Breaking off from Big East

The Big East conference's exercise in transforming itself from a superb basketball conference into a mediocre football circuit is nearly complete. The league originated in 1979 with seven schools -- Boston College, University of Connecticut, Georgetown, Providence, St. John's, Seton Hall, and Syracuse -- and then added Villanova and Pittsburgh within a few years. These institutions shared several core features:

• Location in the northeastern United States.
• Religious affiliations (most of the schools).
• An absence of football programs in the highest tier of the sport (again, for the most part).
• Excellent men's basketball programs, as evidence by UConn, Georgetown, Syracuse, and Villanova winning NCAA titles, and Providence, St. John's, and Seton Hall making it to the Final Four.

The Big East began to grow further, however, with an eye toward building and strengthening its football profile. Major expansions ensued in 1991 and 2005 (see Membership Timeline on the Big East Wikipedia page). Even before the national realignment frenzy got going a couple of years ago, the Big East started losing some teams (e.g., BC and Miami to the ACC), but also pushing west to add teams (e.g., DePaul in Chicago, Marquette in Milwaukee). Once big-time realignment hit, the Big East's revolving door picked up steam, leaving a monstrosity of a conference (because of how fluid things are, any Big East map must be viewed as a temporary snapshot).

With the Big East's current and future membership encompassing such geographically distant institutions as Cincinnati, Southern Methodist (Dallas), Houston, San Diego State, and Boise State (seemingly an effort by the Big East to latch onto the latter's recent football glory), some of the old guard are going back to their roots.

Original (or near-original) Big East members Georgetown, Providence, St. John's, Seton Hall, and Villanova, and newer members DePaul and Marquette -- which some have dubbed the "Catholic 7" -- have announced they are leaving to form their own basketball-focused league. It is still unresolved whether the departing or remaining schools will get to use the name "Big East." Other religiously affiliated basketball-oriented schools such as Xavier (Ohio) may be sought for the new grouping.

Nate Silver, the political and sports statistician, contends that:

A conference composed of these seven teams, along with select others that do not sponsor Division I football programs, could offer a men’s basketball league that was roughly as competitive as that of major conferences like the Pacific-12 and the Southeastern Conference.

With Connecticut the only original Big East school not to have left (as of this writing), Husky women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma has expressed frustration with the departure of his longtime rivals. He has accused these schools, in essence, of milking the league of all the football revenue they could over the last several years, but then absconding as soon as the pigskin money evaporated.

The future of the Big East, sans the Catholic 7, remains more in doubt than ever. Boise State apparently is considering retracting its plan to join the Big East, in favor of staying in the more geographically compatible Mountain West. If Boise State cancelled on the Big East, San Diego State would almost certainly do likewise, I would think. And these wouldn't be the first Big East no-shows. Texas Christian University, which at one point was scheduled to join the Big East, left before ever playing a game in it, going directly from the Mountain West to its current home in the Big 12.

There is historical precedent for large and widely scattered leagues being untenable and dissolving into smaller subgroups. The Big East now seems to be following suit.