Hearing from people listening to "The Herd" on ESPN Radio that Colin Cowherd is saying it's about a 100% lock to happen. Obviously it's all speculation, but this is the first a major news source has come out and said it's all but official.

Thoughts? Anyone listening? I can't listen at work, I'd love to hear if anyone has heard the show today.

He claims that Rutgers and Pitt are also going to be included. The Big 10 gets NYC exposure and two elite basketball programs.

Talk about an awesome basketball conference. Football would leave something to be desired, but the money would be flowing regardless.

UConn is a comer in football and they have a very good coach. Pitt has a solid program.

That is true. I don't know how "great" Pitt would be in the Big Ten year-in and year-out, but they could probably compete to be upper-echelon (top 4) every few years. UConn I would think would be somewhere around Purdue level.

if it's a 100% lock based on speculation I'd say it's 50/50 to happen at best.

I'd rather have UCONN than Rutgers if we are nitpicking.

I'm not against Pitt joining, but think there are better options for the B10.

gorocks99 wrote: That is true. I don't know how "great" Pitt would be in the Big Ten year-in and year-out, but they could probably compete to be upper-echelon (top 4) every few years. UConn I would think would be somewhere around Purdue level.

I think that both of those are good comparisons. I think that UConn would be like Purdue in football and Pitt would be like Wisconsin. If Rutgers is the fourth third team they add then I don't think that they stop there. If they expand to 14 teams, and since the Pac-10 is considering expansion, the Bix XII and SEC would also have to expand. I think it would be prudent at this point to add two more teams (Notre Dame and Missouri) and go to 16 teams to become the first super-conference, because this is clearly where college athletics is heading.

The only thing I don't like about Pitt joining is the fact that they play at Heintz field. Since Minnesota now has their own on-campus stadium, I'd prefer that all the schools in the conference have their own stadiums as well. And we've all seen how horrendous that playing surface is in Pittsburgh.

Pitt is going to be good in football for a couple years behind Dion Lewis.

UCONN is also new to D1 but has already had some pretty good years.

Both schools are legit in basketball.

Pitt and Uconn would be big losses for the Big East in hoops. So let's say that the Big 10 adds Rutgers too. That would give the Big 10 14 teams and the Big East would only have 13 teams.

Well, at least we won't have to hear Big 10 fans say,"They get so many teams in the tournament because they have so many in the conference."

Interesting to see if this happens. Jim O'Brien has pretty much been offered the Rutgers bball job. I would luv nothing better then to have him revisit OSU.

If Calhoun's club was where it was five years ago, this would be scary for the other Big Ten basketball programs, outside of perhaps MSU and now OSU. UConn would've cleaned UP.

But with the program's major regression in recent years, this becomes a very nice competitive addition. If it works out, of course. It would lift the Big Ten's basketball conference any way you cut it, especially if Pitt were to join.

This would be very bad for the Big East, as you instantly lose three of the conference's four biggest rivalries across football or basketball. With the Big Ten addition of UConn and Pitt, you are losing UConn-Syracuse in hoops, UConn-Georgetown in basketball and Pitt-West Virginia in football and hoops.

That'd be a big blow.

The other rivalry among the Big East's top four is, of course, Syracuse-Georgetown.

IMO, Syracuse-G'town is THE top rivalry in Big East hoops.

^^I agree. I probably wasn't very clear in how I was ranking them, but that's why I said the Big East would lose three of its top four rivalries if both UConn and Pitt were to leave the conference. There is no doubt that Georgetown-Syracuse has been the best over the past quarter century.

reclegend22 wrote: If Calhoun's club was where it was five years ago, this would be scary for the other Big Ten basketball programs, outside of perhaps MSU and now OSU. UConn would've cleaned UP.

But with the program's major regression in recent years, this becomes a very nice competitive addition. If it works out, of course. It would lift the Big Ten's basketball conference any way you cut it, especially if Pitt were to join.

This would be very bad for the Big East, as you instantly lose three of the conference's four biggest rivalries across football or basketball. With the Big Ten addition of UConn and Pitt, you are losing UConn-Syracuse in hoops, UConn-Georgetown in basketball and Pitt-West Virginia in football and hoops.

That'd be a big blow.

I don't know that you would really lose any of these rivalries. If you have a 14 team conference, you're split into two division, which means in football you would play the other teams in your division every year and probably two teams from the other division on a rotation. That's 8 conference games and 4 OOC games a year. In basketball you'd probably play everyone in your division twice and everyone in the other division once a year. Plenty of non-conference games for these rivalries to still happen at least once a year. Illinois splays Missouri and Michigan plays Notre Dame in football every year. No reason Pitt and WVU couldn't still finish their regular seasons against each other in football annually.

I also don't see how the Big East could survive as a football conference after this. They only have 8 schools playing football right now and this would leave them with five. They are barely a viable BCS conference as it is. With basketball they could add one more team and be fine, however, the five D-1A football schools that are left would either look to add three new football schools, or more likely, look to join another conference. If this happens I think that it spells the end of the Big East as a D-1A football conference and moves them to being a basketball-only conference.

Well, if it does end up happening, there's a guaranteed 2 losses a year in conference for OSU's women, since we know Foster isn't going to outcoach someone equal to him, let alone Geno.