Big East to Add Memphis in All Sports at BetLM

Big East to Add Memphis in All Sports

Mem­phis is the lat­est school to sign up for a spot in the new Big East.

A per­son famil­iar with the deci­sion says Mem­phis is join­ing the Big East. The per­son spoke to The Asso­ci­ated Press on con­di­tion of anonymity because an offi­cial announce­ment was pending.

Mem­phis Ath­letic direc­tor R.C. John­son said the school is hold­ing a con­fer­ence call fol­lowed by a news con­fer­ence Wednes­day to dis­cuss the university’s ath­letic affiliation.

The Tigers will join the league for the 2013–14 sea­son and com­pete in all sports, becom­ing the fourth Con­fer­ence USA team to move to the Big East in the last two months, along with Hous­ton, Cen­tral Florida and SMU.

CBSSports.com first reported Mem­phis was on the verge of join­ing the Big East.

The Big East is try­ing to replace bas­ket­ball pow­ers Syra­cuse and Pitts­burgh and West Vir­ginia, and cre­ate a foot­ball league with at least 12 teams.

Syra­cuse and Pitts­burgh are leav­ing for the Atlantic Coast Con­fer­ence and West Vir­ginia is headed to the Big 12.

Along with pre­vi­ously adding in Decem­ber three CUSA schools, Boise State and San Diego State agreed to join the Big East in foot­ball only in 2013.

Last month, the Big East announced Navy will become a football-only mem­ber in 2015.

When West Vir­ginia, Syra­cuse and Pitt are leav­ing is still up in the air. West Vir­ginia has sued the Big East in an effort to join the Big 12 in 2012. The Big East filed a coun­ter­suit try­ing to force WVU to abide by the conference’s bylaws, which require a 27-month noti­fi­ca­tion period for schools to depart.

Big East Com­mis­sioner John Mar­i­natto has said the league intends to hold West Vir­ginia, Pitt and Syra­cuse until the sum­mer of 2014.

Mem­phis has been try­ing to move from Con­fer­ence USA since being snubbed when the Big East expanded in 2005, los­ing a long-time rivalry with Louisville. A depar­ture now would be pricey for the Tigers. The exit fee from Con­fer­ence USA for 2013–14 is $ 500,000 plus Mem­phis’ share of tele­vi­sion rights rev­enue, which is approx­i­mately $ 6.13 mil­lion, accord­ing to a league spokeswoman.

The Tigers’ value to the Big East is in bas­ket­ball, where the Tigers have made 23 NCAA tour­na­ment appear­ances with a record of 32–23. The Tigers played in the national title game in 1973 and 2008, when they lost to UCLA and Kansas respec­tively. They also reached the Final Four in 1985 and lost in three other regional finals.

Louisville coach Rick Pitino has been lob­by­ing the Big East to add Mem­phis to help strengthen the league in bas­ket­ball. Louisville and Mem­phis have spent years together first in the Mis­souri Val­ley Con­fer­ence, the Metro Con­fer­ence and Con­fer­ence USA. Pitino again called out for league offi­cials to con­sider Mem­phis after Louisville beat Mem­phis on Dec. 17.

“I’m just hop­ing the Big East gets smart and does some­thing about that and allows them to come into the league,” Pitino said. “I keep get­ting on the pul­pit and say­ing this: We got hurt big time and we need Mem­phis. Mem­phis doesn’t need us, we need Mem­phis. We need Tem­ple. We need to build up bas­ket­ball again.”

With John Cali­pari as coach, Mem­phis made four straight NCAA tour­na­ment appear­ances between 2006 and 2009. Josh Past­ner, who took over when Cali­pari left for Ken­tucky in 2009, took Mem­phis to the NCAA tour­na­ment last sea­son after win­ning the Con­fer­ence USA tour­na­ment. Mem­phis will be host­ing Con­fer­ence USA’s men’s and women’s bas­ket­ball tour­na­ments in March.

Mem­phis foot­ball has played in five bowls since 2003, but all have been lower-tier games. Lately, the pro­gram has hit the skids. The Tigers haven’t had a win­ning record since 2007.

Mem­phis just hired Justin Fuente as its new foot­ball coach, replac­ing Larry Porter who was fired after going 3–21 in two sea­sons. The Tigers play foot­ball at the Lib­erty Bowl Memo­r­ial Stadium.

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Col­lege Foot­ball Writer Ralph Russo in New York con­tributed to this report.

BetLM's sports betting news features unique sports betting articles as well as current sports news compiled from leading wire services. This arti­cle was dis­trib­uted by Syn­di­cated Sports news wire and aggre­ga­tion ser­vice, For more col­lege foot­ball news see: Big East to add Mem­phis in all sports .

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