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As the separation of the Big East Conference moved toward a conclusion, one question was hanging over the negotiations. Who owns the iconic name? Apparently, the answer is the seven departing Catholic schools. An ESPN.com report Thursday night said the seven schools will start their own league next season and will keep the Big East name. Big East commissioner Mike Aresco insisted as recently as last week that he hoped to retain the name, citing three decades and the name's attachment to the Bowl Championship Series level of football.

John Marinatto resigned Monday as the Big East's commissioner, CBS Sports reported, citing industry sources. Marinatto, only the third commissioner in the conference's history, recruited seven new members in recent months as the Big East battled for survival after two rounds of departures that saw Boston College, Miami, Virginia Tech, Syracuse, Pittsburgh and West Virginia announce their exits.

The Big East is set to add Boise State, San Diego State, SMU, UCF and Houston as it begins to rebuild its league, with an announcement expected as early as Wednesday, sources confirmed to ESPN.com. Boise State and San Diego State of the Mountain West will enter the league as football-only members, while Houston, SMU and UCF, all of Conference USA, will join the Big East for all sports, sources told ESPN.com. The five schools have been long rumored as candidates to join a battered league that has seen the defections of Pittsburgh, Syracuse, TCU and West Virginia in the...

PHILADELPHIA (AP)—The Big East is ready to start adding members...

The Big East's football expansion plans leave the conference with 17 universities, including non-Football members. That's a terrible number for scheduling; the only way the basketball teams can schedule an even number of games is if they play every other team only once. 18 teams would allow three divisions of six teams each. Any team would play the other five teams in its division twice, and one half of the twelve other teams in the conference. 18 sounds like worsening the problem of too many teams, but having three divisions could actually restore some rivalries, and return the conference to...

FORT WORTH, Texas -- TCU has accepted a bid for full membership to become the 17th member of the Big East Conference, effective July 1, 2012. "Having BCS automatic-qualifying status was a priority for our football program and a great reward for the success we've had the last decade," TCU athletic director Chris Del Conte said in a statement. The conference change allows TCU to play in an automatic BCS-qualifying league beginning in the 2012-13 school year. TCU currently plays in the Mountain West Conference, which does not have an automatic bid to the BCS and is going through some...

Originally cobbled together by basketball teams, but dominated by football teams, the Big East faces an enigmatic problem: It has grown too large to be a sensible arrangement for a conference, yet it faces pressure to grow yet again: football interests possibly would like to add Texas Christian, Temple, or both. The solution may be similarly enigmatic: to compact itself by expanding. My proposal: Invite the sought-after football clubs, but ALSO invite a couple rivals from the Atlantic Ten. Then form four divisions, forming two mini-conferences. For basketball, there would be 18 games: Teams in the same division would play...

<p>Remember the talk that the Big Ten would take 12-18 months to decide whether to expand?</p> <p>An accelerated timetable has emerged, according to sources familiar with the process.</p> <p>High-ranking Big Ten representatives will meet Sunday afternoon in Washington D.C. to discuss expansion. The timing and location of the session make sense considering the Association of American Universities is holding its semi-annual meetings in D.C. from Sunday-Tuesday, and all 11 Big Ten schools are AAU members.</p>

Maybe the doubters will finally go away. They should. Not one Big East football team was ranked among the Top 25 in preseason polls. Now, as the college football season is concluding two teams are in the Top Ten and one is in the Top Five. During the season there were as many as four teams ranked in the Top 25. Think about the significance of this. Half of the teams in the Big East conference were ranked among the Top 25 in the nation. What other college football conference can make such a claim? The University of Cincinnati is...

STORRS, Conn. (AP) -- A University of Connecticut student committed an act terrorism by posting Internet messages telling people to "stop the snitching" after the stabbing death of football player Jasper Howard, university police said Thursday.

Put the shovel down. West Virginia is far from dead. Yeah, Rich Rodriguez is now coaching Michigan, and offensive sparkplugs Steve Slaton, Owen Schmitt, and Darius Reynaud are gone, but the Mountaineers are still the class of the Big East. The one constant amid all the change in Morgantown is QB Pat White, the dynamic dual-threat that’s capable of carrying the program to a third BCS bowl game in the last four years. That said, the ‘eers have too many question marks on defense and on the sidelines to be considered a legitimate threat to run the table and play...

Last season was a body blow for all the Big East detractors who felt the league had no business getting a highly-coveted automatic BCS bowl berth. Almost half of the conference’s members finished the season ranked in the top 12 and it left a lasting off-season impression with a 5-0 bowl record. With the returns of Heisman contenders Brian Brohm, Steve Slaton, Pat White and Ray Rice, prepare for an encore performance. Forget all the talk about the demise of the Big East. It’s over, as long as no more schools bolt for greener pastures. The league has two budding...

It never comes as a surprise when the Big East produces teams good enough to win a national championship in men’s basketball. That is the case again this season; the conference is loaded, and two teams are showing up in the top 10 in nearly every preseason poll. It may be a familiar story, but the names have changed. With Connecticut, Villanova and Syracuse dominating the Big East standings and headlines the last few seasons, it has been hard for Georgetown and Pittsburgh to break out of the pack. But that does not figure to be the case this season....

Today is Ash Wednesday, and if recent history is any guide, once again Roman Catholic colleges will be giving up the NCAA basketball championship for Lent. It's been 21 years since a Catholic school last won the title, and since then only three Catholic colleges have even made the Final Four. But before then, Catholic schools enjoyed great success beyond their relatively small numbers and resources. Holy Cross, La Salle, San Francisco, Loyola of Chicago, Marquette, Georgetown and Villanova all won championships, and during the heyday of the National Invitational Tournament, when it was a valid rival to the NCAA,...

Boston College will leave the Big East Conference to become the 12th member of the Atlantic Coast Conference when an official invitation is offered Sunday, an ACC university official told the New York Times for Saturday's editions. According to that official, Boston College is expected to be overwhelmingly approved when the ACC universities hold a conference call Sunday. Boston College will then immediately accept the invitation, according to the report. In June, Miami and Virginia Tech announced that they would leave the Big East for the ACC starting in the 2004-05 academic year. Adding a 12th team became much more...

Big East Schools' lawsuit against ACC thrown out (Hartford-AP, Oct. 10, 2003 Updated 5:00 PM ) _ A Superior Court judge says several Big East schools can not sue the Atlantic Coast Conference in Connecticut court. Judge Samuel Sferrazza threw out a lawsuit against the ACC today, leaving the University of Miami as the lone defendant. Big East schools accuse Miami of conspiring to join the ACC, costing Connecticut and other Big East schools millions of dollars. Sferrazza ruled that the ACC did not do enough business in Connecticut to warrant a lawsuit here. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal says...

"This stadium is a major part of our Division I-A effort, and we built the stadium while relying on promises made to us by Miami and reassurances that have proved false," said Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who is spearheading a lawsuit filed against Miami and the A.C.C., alleging that Miami reneged on promises that it intended to remain in the Big East for the foreseeable future. "That's the reason I remain so angry and so adamant. All the information that we continue to uncover reaffirms that Miami and the A.C.C. knew of our reliance on false assurances even as...

It appears to be two and out for the Big East Conference as we've known it. Sources within the conference and published reports said Thursday that the six remaining Big East all-sports members are close to finalizing a move to break away from the basketball-based schools and form a new league. That new Division I-A conference, created by West Virginia, Pitt, Syracuse, Boston College, Rutgers and Connecticut, would then invite Louisville and Cincinnati from Conference USA. That would create an eight-team conference for football, and sources indicated that Notre Dame would join that group for all sports except football. These...

Shalala, Miami show true colorsThe conscience of the Clinton administration came through as expected Monday afternoon. She didn't show up.DONNA SHALALA, FORMER SECRETARY of Health and Human Services under Bill Clinton and present president of the University of Miami, announced Monday that the Hurricanes would abandon their partners in the Big East and jump to the Atlantic Coast Conference starting with the 2004-05 season. This came after she previously had promised she would not do so unless her friends at Boston College and Syracuse were also invited.

<p>Miami is headed for the ACC.</p> <p>"It has been a bizarre, strange and goofy process," Miami president Donna Shalala said yesterday. "But it has allowed us the opportunity to have the distance to decide who we are, where we are and where we want to go."</p>