Big East Basketball: 6 potential options to replace UConn if they leave for Big 12

Florida Atlantic

Clearly, Florida Atlantic’s profile has been greatly heightened by the recent success of their basketball program. The Owls had a marvelous regular season in their final year in Conference USA before marching to the Final Four as a 9-seed, with a buzzer beating shot preventing them from a trip to the national championship game. With nearly all of that talent coming back this upcoming season, Florida Atlantic might just win the AAC in year one.

Would a move to the Big East be premature? This is a long-term decision, though the Owls seem locked in for the long-term, recently signing coach Dusty May to a multi-year deal, hoping to keep him in Boca Raton as they keep building this program. It also wouldn’t be an unprecedented decision, as Butler leaped from Horizon League to A-10 to Big East in a two-year span in the tail end of Brad Stevens’ legendary run with the program.

One potential downside for this move is that Florida Atlantic does have an FBS-level football program, currently helmed by former Texas coach Tom Herman. There’s no football in the Big East and the program would need to figure out what they could do. Would the AAC let them be football-only? Frankly, there are also concerns on how this program would compete beyond this current crop of players, but having a Big East team in southern Florida certainly isn’t new.