The remaining Big East Conference members announced last week that they had given conference commissioner John Marinatto permission to take whatever steps were necessary to save the conference from completely imploding.
Not one to waste time, Marinatto has already held negotiations with a variety of different schools including: Southern Methodist, Central Florida, Temple, and Navy about joining the conference in some capacity.
While there is no timetable for the Big East to announce the addition of new teams, it is expected that they'll move quickly to replace outgoing members Syracuse and Pittsburgh, who are moving to the ACC.
The addition of schools like SMU and Central Florida is disconcerting for the basketball only schools like Providence and St. Johns who are nervous after the losses of Pittsburgh and Syracuse, two basketball powers. Adding non-competitive schools to the basketball fold would serve to weaken a conference that placed a record 11 teams in the NCAA Tournament last year.