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.