C-USA loses, gains five schools
By Matt Potter
Staff Reporter

Wholesale changes announced Tuesday in Conference USA and the Big East will temporarily weaken C-USA in basketball and football, but won’t prompt TCU to change conferences, Athletics director Eric Hyman said.

Big East officials announced Tuesday afternoon that the University of Cincinnati, University of Louisville, Marquette University, DePaul University and University of South Florida had all accepted invitations to join the Big East.

About three hours later, C-USA countered the departure of the schools by acquiring Marshall University, Rice University, Southern Methodist University, the University of Tulsa and the University of Central Florida.

“Basketball and football won’t be as strong as it was before, for a while,” Hyman said. “But that doesn’t change our position. We want a vehicle that will take us to a national level. With all these changes, we need to be fluid and have the ability to adapt to different situations.”

C-USA Commissioner Britton Banowsky said in an e-mail that the new additions will benefit the conference.

“We are excited about adding new members and making structural improvements to Conference USA,” Banowsky said. “This is an opportunity for us to tighten our geography, group similar institutions together, create a divisional model and possibly stage a football championship game.”

The new institutions will become full members of C-USA July 1, 2005.

Hyman said the departure of the C-USA schools came as no surprise.

“TCU was aware that this might happen,” Hyman said.

He said he knew about the possible additions to C-USA but wasn’t sure if everything would come together.

“This move was anticipated for at least five or six weeks,” Hyman said. “But you can never be sure it will all work out until schools sign on the dotted line.”

According to published reports, TCU is expected to receive an invitation to join the Mountain West Conference soon.

Hyman said he has been talking to the commissioners of both the MWC and C-USA but will not comment on whether or not he thinks TCU will receive an invitation to join the MWC.

“At this point I’m not commenting on the conjecture that we will receive an invitation from the Mountain West,” Hyman said. “I talk to different commissioners on an ongoing basis about a number of different things, that’s my job.”

MWC Commissioner Craig Thompson said in a news conference Tuesday that as far as expansion goes, no specific schools have been discussed.

MWC officials hope to decide by the end of this month or by December what schools they will choose for expansion, Thompson said.