The Big East announced that it will be a single, 16 team division next year and that only the top 12 teams will play in the Big East Tournament. There will be 16 conference games, but not everyone will play every year. There will by 10 single game match-ups and then 6 games of home-and-home (3 teams) to be determined every year. Most of the 10 single games will be on a rotating basis, but some rivalry games (Pitt-WVU, Louisville-Cinci, Seton Hall-Rutgers will be permanent).

The single division set-up was clearly about maximizing the number of teams to get into the NCAA Tournament. Divisional play tends to get unbalanced quickly. One side may have too many good teams beating the crap out of each other, killing their chances while the other side may just be too weak.

The set-up for conference play was about TV money. Those home-and-home match-ups will be determined by their geographic proximity, attractiveness, national interest and competitiveness. Next year, you can expect Pitt to play home-and-home against any combination of UConn, Syracuse, ND and/or WVU. ND would likely be seeing Pitt, UConn, Marquette and/or DePaul. Louisville would be Cinci, Providence, WVU and Marquette. And so on.

No matter what, it will be ugly and unwieldly and the Big East will have to split within 5 years.