C-USA Realignment a Puzzling Mess

[Harry]

It is an uncomfortable alliance that brings together 12 schools for the Conference USA Basketball Tournament in Tulsa this week.

Why teams are leaving C-USA for a new league with no name and basically the same teams is emblematic of everything that is wrong with conference realignment.

Much of what has happened in conference realignment makes little sense. However, the shifting alliances between Conference USA and a yet-to-be-named league with pretty much the same lineup is the strangest move of all.

Many believe Tulsa, in the very near future, will join the C-USA defectors in a new league formerly known as the Big East.

Any resemblance between the old Big East and the new version, whatever it's called, is pure coincidence.

Seven Catholic school members of the Big East are taking the name of the league with them to form a new basketball-only league.

That means the league so many C-USA schools seem eager to join has no name, no history and no details of an agreement.

There are good reasons why Boise State and San Diego State jumped at the first chance to abandon the no-name league and return to the Mountain West Conference.

One has to wonder why some Conference USA schools wouldn't follow the lead of Boise and San Diego State and stay in C-USA.

Read more: http://www.tulsaworld.com/sportsextra/article.aspx?subjectid=203&articleid=20130313_203_B1_ITISAN567879

[NT91]

Bring back UofH and SMU.

[Legend500]

The targets shouldn't be Houston or SMU - it should be Tulane, Memphis and ECU. Try to get the "lesser" schools to stay (because of the costs & uncertainty of the new league) and teams like UH & SMU will have no other choice.

[greenjoe]

Yup. Tulane and Memphis and East Carolina and maybe Houston. And work really hard to keep Tulsa. With few exceptions I really like our CUSA.

GO MEAN GREEN

[GTWT]

Yup. Tulane and Memphis and East Carolina and maybe Houston. And work really hard to keep Tulsa. With few exceptions I really like our CUSA.

GO MEAN GREEN

I liked cUSA a lot better before it became Sun Belt version 2.0. Still, it's better than Sun Belt 1.0.

[JesseMartin]

The targets shouldn't be Houston or SMU - it should be Tulane, Memphis and ECU. Try to get the "lesser" schools to stay (because of the costs & uncertainty of the new league) and teams like UH & SMU will have no other choice.

By "lesser" do you mean "less football history"? Just wanted to clarify. Because each of those schools has some great stuff to offer (ECU's home attendance, Tulane's academics, Memphis' name recognition/location/decent FB and BB history, etc). Heck, if they didn't, we wouldn't want to be in a conference with them, right? Which is why I think you meant what I said at the beginning of the paragraph...if not, is it TV/regional reasons or something else...?