The University of Louisville will be spending their next season in the American Athletic Conference prior to officially joining the ACC.
The AAC is the name that has been given to the off-shoot Big East conference that will commence in 2013 officially with the inaugural members of Cincinnati, Connecticut, Houston, Memphis, Southern Methodist University, South Florida, Temple, Central Florida, Syracuse (who will spend only one season with the conference prior to moving to the Big Ten) and Louisville (who will also spend only one season prior to moving to the ACC).
Like the conference’s predecessor the conference will be headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island and currently have deals with East Carolina, Tulana, and Tulsa all of which are set to begin play in the conference in the 2014 season; to compensate for Louisville and Syracuse’s departure.
In addition, Navy will be coming to the conference in 2015.
The Big East name will continue with the new Big East which features non-football playing Catholic universities that were formerly in the original conference for the most part. Their roster consists of Creighton, DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, St. John’s, Seton Hall, Villanova, and Xavier. Rounding out the conference is the only non-catholic school in the conference, Butler.
The AAC will hold their first basketball tournament in Hartford, Connecticut however currently the plan with this tournament is that it will move around rather than staying in one location, the way the old Big East conference operated annually holding the tournament in Madison Square Garden in New York.
What’s so ironic about this timing, coming off basketball season is that the original big east won both the men’s and women’s NCAA tournaments. The women’s with Connecticut and of course the men’s with Louisville.
Images courtesy of Navy Scout and Juggle
