Another Tuesday, another batch of conference expansion and shifts. Tulane joined the Big East for all sports, while East Carolina will join only for Football. The biggest news though came out of the ACC, where the ACC announced that it will take a vote on expansion on Wednesday morning at 7 am.
It was thought that the three logical choices would be Louisville, UConn and Cincinnati, with Louisville being the favorite. Louisville was thought to be a potential candidate for the Big 12 and that is why it is widely believed that the ACC is choosing them over the other two.
ESPN reports that UConn and Cincinnati could be used to expand the ACC to 16 at a later time, or they could be used as replacement for teams that leave. The ACC doesn’t think any conference but them would take either one of these schools, so they aren’t as hot of an team to grab. None of these schools will add much in the way of football, but adding Louisville would increase the ACC’s power in basketball.
Whatever may happen here, it has become clear that the Big Ten started another string of dominoes by adding Rutgers and Maryland. The Big East has now had seven teams announce that they will leave in the past year. When it will stop, is unclear, but Louisville will be the next major team to move, and it is likely to be announced this week that they will join the ACC in 2014 when Maryland leaves.
H/T: ESPN