Sources have told New York Times reporter Pete Thamel that Big East members Syracuse and Pittsburgh have had discussions with the ACC about moving to the conference. Thamel reports:
Syracuse University and the University of Pittsburgh, two bedrock members of the Big East Conference, are engaged in talks about joining the Atlantic Coast Conference, according to a person with direct knowledge of the talks.
The most interesting part of the story is that none of the parties involved will comment on the story. Unlike Virginia Tech, which immediately repudiated any interest in moving to the SEC in similar stories, no one from Syracuse, Pittsburgh, or the Big East is denying that there is any validity to the report.
What does this mean for the Big East? If the move occurs, the Big East is dead. There's no other way to spin it. Pittsburgh and Syracuse have been bedrock members of the conference and it would likely mean the crumbling of the Big East and the soaking up of more valuable members by other conference hoping to also expand. It's virtually impossible to lay out all of the possible paths expansion could take. Regardless, we could be looking at the death of the Big East in a matter of weeks.