This was not the scenario anyone envisioned after Friday. Thursday was supposed to be the last chance to save the Big 12. Then Nebraska said goodbye, and all that was left was waiting for the official word from Texas and whether Texas A&M would go its own way to the SEC.

Instead, Dan Beebe pulled a miracle. After a weekend of being portrayed as a moron to a nice guy in the wrong place with no power — he got a fresh renegotiated contract for the Big 12/10 that made it worth Texas’ while to stay.

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Yeesh. Push out an expansion round-up. Head out to do some things with the kids (summer vacation in full swing). Get back and find out that nearly as soon as I posted, that the Big 12 may yet survive.

Orangebloods.com: According to sources, Texas will announce as early as today that UT will commit to a 10-member Big 12.

Or not:

One source said commissioner Dan Beebe’s last-minute plan to save the conference has “zero” chance to succeed. Another source said it is “very unlikely” to succeed.

Who knows at this point. Maybe Texas told the other members that they would stay if everyone agreed to stay and make a contractually binding agreement — filled with punitive penalties, costs to make it extremely prohibitive to leave and an extended unwinding. I would imagine Missouri would balk, and there would have been a good chance at Texas A&M also hesitating.

Here’s the thing. Texas has the position of strength that it can make, say a 5-year commitment to the Big 12/10. They will still be a sought after program by other conferences in five years.

Texas A&M and especially Mizzou cannot be that sure of things. If they make a commitment and then the Big Something does go to 16, they are stuck. They could find themselves missing their chance at the Big Something, the SEC could be set at that point,  and then still see Texas leave them in the remains of the Big 12/10.

I guess, it just seems are too far gone for Texas (and even Texas A&M) to do a 180 and save the Big 12/10.

As the Big 12 is in its slow motion death spiral, the Big East simply waits for the raiding to come east. What? You expected activity from the Big East leadership?

That isn’t the way things roll in Providence. As usual, it appears that the basektball schools are looking forward to the end.

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Expansion speculation round-up a little later. Lots of talk building up to what is expected to be a wild day tomorrow. In the mean time…

There is no doubt that markets and athletics drives conference expansion. Academics matter, but that is more of a tie-breaker. It is something that helps bolster the appearance that conference expansion is also about improving academics in the conference and finding the right fit.

Pitt can obviously sell a lot on the academic side. To wit:

The University of Pittsburgh has been ranked in the very top cluster of the nation’s public research universities in the recently released 2009 edition of The Top American Research Universities. This is the fourth consecutive year that Pitt has earned the highest ranking. Only six other universities were placed in the very top group of public research universities this year—the University of California at Berkeley, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Illinois, the University of Michigan, the University of North Carolina, and the University of Wisconsin.

The report clusters universities based on their comparative strength in research, private support, faculty, doctorates, postdoctoral appointees, and undergraduate quality, as assessed across nine objective measures. Reflecting a core belief that “universities of the highest quality tend to do most things very well,” the institutions placed in the top cluster must rank among the top 25 public universities on all nine measures.

(A big hat-tip to SteveG for pointing this out in the comments last week.)

You can find the full 232 page report here (PDF).  The list Pitt cites is on page 16. The next Big East school to show up on that list is Cinci at #26 and then Rutgers at #28.

Keep in mind that that particular list was limited to just public universities. The overall top-25 nationally (page 8) seems to include some different criteria, but Pitt still ranks #25 (the 6th grouping)  in a list that also includes private universities. Still the only Big East school in that list.

That primary list is also a big indicator of just how hard the Pac-10 schools are willing to swallow to get Texas, by taking Oklahoma, OK State and Texas Tech. The Pac-10 has sixschools in the top-50 (Stanford, Cal, UCLA, Washington, USC, and Arizona), and all but Arizona are in the top-15.

Looking over that list if you want to break it down by BCS conferences:

Pac-10: 6

Big 12: 2 (Texas, Texas A&M)

SEC: 2 (Vandy, Florida)

ACC: 4 (Duke, UNC, Virginia, Maryland)

Big 10: 8 (Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, OSU, Northwestern, PSU, Illinois, Purdue plus CIC member Chicago)

Big East: 1

Independents: 1 (ND)

The MWC has no schools on the list. C-USA actually has one: Rice.

In a less rigorous list, there was this article from the Daily Beast that listed Pitt as the 18th most powerful tech college.