[Izulde]

What We Know So Far
1. The East Coast Conference, which will have 4 prestige ranking, has the following confirmed 8 members:

UNC-Charlotte - 70
George Washington - 56
Richmond - 66
VCU - 70
Davidson - 62
College of Charleston - 56
Georgia State - 38
UNC-Wilmington - 49

2. DePaul (prestige 59) has found a new home in the Horizon, which is weirdly a 4 prestige conference right now. Hence, when they were invited to rejoin a basketball only Big East, the Blue Demons told them to go to hell. Which is pretty funny because, you know, Demons telling someone to go to hell?

3. Old Dominion (65) is in the Sun Belt, which with preseason #25 Western Kentucky may merit an upgrade in prestige, pending what other moves they make. They're at 10 right now, and will try to scoop up the best of the deserted in the impending firestorm.

4. The following football schools are now on the market:

South Florida - 52 (After breaking their agreement with the ECC)
Rutgers - 54
Louisville - 92
Notre Dame - 86
West Virginia - 84
Pittsburgh - 92
UConn - 90
Syracuse - 90
Cincinnati - 77
Buffalo - 39
UAB - 74 (Albeit it'll be a few years before they're back competing)
Temple - 81*
UMass - 60*

5. Non-football school free agents:

Providence - 67
Denver - 29
South Alabama - 51
New Orleans - 30
Arkansas Little-Rock - 40

* - Temple and Massachusetts, seeing the frenzy, left the Atlantic 10 as well, even though UMass is new to FBS play.

The Big Ten was privately interested in Rutgers and Pittsburgh as AAU members, but with only one slot remaining, they had to consider it carefully. Besides which, Rutgers did not have a very successful athletics program, and Northwestern was enough of a doormat. For example, the past season, Rutgers was 5-24, 3-15. Pittsburgh, conversely, was 25-8,11-7 and made it to the Elite 8 . But the conference already had a big Pennsylvania footprint with Penn State. There was more value to be had elsewhere, they felt.

Instead, the first domino was Providence welcomed back to the now fractured Big East. That put the conference back at five members. But there was the Atlantic 10 to consider - could they lure in the high prestige teams with the Big East brand name, given the A-10 was also being raided, albeit at 11 members? And what if they tempted #3 ranked Butler?

The mission was clear - find the highest prestige private schools in the East and upper Midwest, and bring them in to restore luster to a badly shaken brand. The plan worked beautifully, netting the following:

Xavier - 87 (formerly Atlantic 10)
Butler - 83 (formerly Horizon)
Dayton - 81 (formerly Atlantic 10)
Saint Joseph's - 73 (formerly Atlantic 10)

9 members, and more than prestigious enough to keep their top shelf ranking. But they wanted an even 10, and so with a promise of a guaranteed 5 prestige marker, as well as a much more Midwest-friendly orientation, the Big East was able to lure DePaul back.

The Atlantic 10 after the raids was a shell of itself. Saint Louis, La Salle, Rhode Island, Duquesne, St. Bonaventure, and Fordham - Just 6 members, and the NCAA, at the same time they passed the 12 maximum, also required that conferences have a minimum 8 schools (which also put the Great West in danger of a short-lived existence).

Another blow hit, as St. Louis, the last remaining high prestige team (72), packed its bags for the more geographically convenient Horizon, relieving much of Butler's loss. That left Rhode Island (57) as the most renowned basketball brand, and three more schools were needed to even keep the conference going.

A drop to 3 prestige was almost guaranteed, but that would be enough to raid the 2 and 1 prestige conferences. This the Atlantic 10 accomplished by convincing Vermont and Boston University to leave the America East and Robert Morris and Quinnipiac to join from the Northeast. Binghamton was added as a 10th member to keep honesty in the conference name.

Now it was the America East in peril, and they responded by taking Central Connecticut State and Wagner from the Northeast. This left the Northeast with 8 teams, but lacking the juice to pull anyone else in, they stood pat, content just to survive.

Unfortunately for the America East, that couldn't prevent a downgrade to 1 prestige after the NCAA did its reassessment. Still, they'd survived.

This still left Denver, South Alabama, New Orleans, and Arkansas-Little Rock without conferences, to say nothing of the impending power conference explosion.

The Atlantic Sun saw an opportunity to build its powerbase, and promptly let go Florida Gulf Coast, Kennesaw State, and North Florida, wholesale inviting former Sun Belt rejects South Alabama, New Orleans, and Arkansas-Little Rock, which was accepted by all three.

Despite being the lone wolf out, there was little problem from Denver. The Big West wanted to expand its footprint beyond California, and the Great West simply wanted to survive. It was also the very first ripple in the West for what primarily had been an East Coast storm.