Latest news is that Air Force has announced it has no intentions of joining the Big East for the 2013-14 season. As it currently stands, the Big East has 10 football schools, but will likely add an 11th in Navy before all is settled. Some have said that the 12th spot will come down to Memphis and Temple, which would be fantastic from a basketball perspective.
Navy is reportedly joining as a football-only school, which means that there will be 16 basketball and 11 football schools in the conference. Adding Temple or Memphis will give the Big East 12 football and 17 basketball (and other sports) schools. 12 teams is the magic number from a football-perspective, as it allows the conference to create divisions and play a conference championship at the end of the season. 17 teams for basketball certainly seems unwieldy but it is only one more than the current Big East has. Keep the 18 game schedule and cut the number of home-and-home series down to two. And much to the chagrin of everyone from Bristol, the Big East remains a very strong basketball conference that hopefully negotiates a fantastic TV-rights contract with Comcast/NBCU.
- Memphis - has desperately tried to get into the Big East since expansion rumors started floating around a few summers ago. It has impressively rebuilt its program after a late-90s swoon, although it ran into issues with John Calipari and the usual John Calipari shadiness. Georgetown holds a 9-2 head-to-head record against Memphis and is set to play them again in a couple of weeks
- Temple - has maintained an excellent program despite often going unnoticed while playing in the A-10. Fun fact: Temple ranks 6th in all-time NCAA Tournament victories. Temple used to be a football-only member of the Big East but was kicked out in 2004 due to lack of institutional and fan support. Now it has a better program than many of the schools that voted for its dismissal. Temple owns a 22-14 head-to-head advantage over Georgetown.