Dumping Notre Dame

Maybe the Big East needs to convert to Buddhism. Hey, it worked for Tina Turner. According to wikipedia:
"Born as a Baptist, Turner converted to Buddhism in 1974 to help conquer her troubling marriage to Ike Turner. Turner has credited Buddhism with giving her the courage to leave Ike and has said the religion has helped her to find peace."

If the Big East is Tina Turner then consider Notre Dame Ike. The BE is abused and used by ND for its own benefit and gets next to nothing in return. I know some of you may say that Notre Dame is ranked in the Top 10 this year in preseason basketball polls and are an important team in the league. But I pose this question: Who has more to gain from the relationship ND or the BE? Yes, ND is an elite team this year in hoops but I hardly believe they would be able to maintain the program at its current level without being in the BE. The league is recognized as the best in the country and ND benefits by being able to recruit players who want to play with the best of the best. Think about this: in some pre-season polls as many as 10 of the 25 hail the Big East. 40% of the pre-season top 25 come from this conference. Unheard of! Not only that, but geographically the school has to compete with very few BE schools for recruits. If the league were to cut ND off, I believe their basketball program would fade. And would the Big East notice? I hardly think so. The league is loaded with the likes of Pitt, Louisville, UCONN, NOVA, Marquette, WVU, and the list goes on. Not only that, but SJU and Seton Hall appear to be landing some strong talent and I expect them to rise up in the coming years.

On the subject of football, the league would only gain from ND joining. This is fairly obvious. They can even let the golden domer's keep their precious NBC contract as long as adding them brings some much needed respect to the league. Not only that, but Notre Dame already screws the BE with its bowl tie ins. Read Brian Bennet's article on ESPN: http://myespn.go.com/blogs/bigeast/0-1-424/Notre-Dame-poses-problems-for-Big-East-bowl-picture.html

Just as the BE legitimizes ND hoops, the Irish' football program could help legitimize the Big East as a football conference. I realize that ND may be among the elite in the league in sports such as baseball, or soccer. But the Big East is not known for these sports and these certainly are not the money makers.

The Big East needs to stop acting like the insecure girl that won't dump her cheating boyfriend because she doesn't think she'll find anyone else. Message to the Big East: losing the Irish is not that big of a deal. Issue an ultimatum to the Irish: join us in football or risk losing legitimacy in basketball. This would put ND in a tough spot. They would have to join some league to maintain their other sports programs. If they choose the Big East, great. If they choose the Big 10 or elsewhere, who cares, at least they will stop leaching lucrative bowl games from the football conference.