This weekend, Mike Tranghese headed perhaps the final Big East meeting of the conference’s history.

That’s because the Atlantic Coast Conference has wooed Miami, Syracuse and Boston College to create a 12-team superconference that could decimate the 24-year-old Big East.

Tranghese, the Big East commissioner, spent the weekend attempting to convince Miami to remain in the conference. If UM stays, it would keep SU and BC from jumping ship. However, if Miami bolts, it appears Syracuse and BC would follow suit, because the weakened Big East would likely lose an automatic Bowl Championship Series birth following the expiration of the current BCS contract in 2006.

Syracuse director of athletics Jake Crouthamel said Thursday he doesn’t know when or if Miami will defect.

Crouthamel did say that one proposed solution would be using the eight Big East football teams for basketball as well and dumping the remaining schools. But even then, Crouthamel said SU would have to do some ‘financial analysis.’

The talks between the ACC and the three Big East schools can produce a domino effect on the rest of the Big East – if not the entire nation – as schools scramble to find other conferences or the conference scrambles to find other teams.

Following the Big East meetings, Tranghese lashed out at Miami president Donna Shalala in a press conference Tuesday, questioning her integrity and pleading with her to not break apart one of the nation’s major conferences.

‘At the end of the day, President Shalala is going to have to look at the issues we’ve talked about, have to look at financial obligations, have to look at integrity issues,’ Tranghese said. ‘And then she’s going to have to factor in the irreparable harm that’s going to be caused to members of my league.’

Tranghese said if Miami leaves, it would be the ‘most disastrous blow to intercollegiate athletics in my lifetime.’

The ACC issued formal invitations to the three schools last Friday, just prior to the Big East meetings.

The major impediment for the ACC appears to be financial. The conference’s TV contract provides $9.7 million to each school. With potentially three new teams, each school’s portion would be significantly smaller. Nearly $30 million in new revenue would need to surface.

Some of that revenue could come from the lucrative conference championship game that having 12 teams would enable the currently nine-team ACC to hold.

‘I would say there are two words: football and money,’ Crouthamel said. ‘You don’t go to a conference of 12 for any other reason than to take advantage of current NCAA rules which allow you, with a conference of 12, to subdivide into two six-team divisions and then play a championship game. With the way the economy, the television marketplace is, you really have to find ways, almost not to increase your revenue, but to not decrease it.’

Another problem would be dividing the teams. Presumably, the four North Carolina schools – North Carolina, N.C. State, Duke and Wake Forest – would join rivals Virginia and Maryland in one division. That would leave Syracuse, Miami, BC, Clemson, Georgia Tech and Florida State in the other division. Under such a distribution, the latter division would be much weaker in basketball but significantly stronger in football.SU basketball coach Jim Boeheim has publicly opposed Syracuse moving to the ACC.

‘I can understand why people don’t want change,’ Crouthamel said. ‘When we started the Big East conference, there was not 100 percent support for entering that kind of formal relationship. I fully expect that if this all happens, we all go through a period of transition.’

A deadline for a decision has not been set. However, if schools decide to leave the Big East after June 30 to join another conference for the beginning of 2004-05, the withdrawal fee doubles from $1 million to $2 million.

Meanwhile, the Big East would most likely be dissembled with the realignment.’I’ve got to come here and talk about this,’ Tranghese said. ‘My people are fighting for their lives. Are they frustrated? Are they angry? Of course. Those are obvious emotions.

‘(T)his will be the most disastrous blow to intercollegiate athletics in my lifetime. It’s wrong.’

Published on May 24, 2003 at 12:00 pm