Tulane getting blame for Big East falling apart

The Big East is falling apart -- Thursday they lost seven basketball-only members -- and the brunt of the blame is going toward the Tulane Green Wave. While adding Tulane as an all sports member was a head-scratching of a move, they are not the primary reason the Big East is possibly going on the wayside.

One name to publicly be against the move from within the league is Marquette AD Larry Williams who said he was disappointed with the move.

Then there is David Munn, a Tulane booster for 40 years and president of the St. Bernard Parish Green Wave Club, and he has the right attitude about the Green Wave accepting a Big East invite:

"We got an invitation, we thought it was a good one and we took it." Munn said. "I can understand the frustration, but they should be angry at the founding members of the Big East who left. They were being carried by these big schools with big followings."

Munn is exactly right, the blame should be placed on first the league for turning down a television rights deal from ESPN that would have paid each school about $18 million a year, and then blame the league office for allowing for so many schools to leave, causing the league to be weak.

While Tulane may be the proverbially straw that broke the camel's back, but one must look to the prior moves to really see how the Big East slowly started to crumble away to a mid-major conference.

While most of the country has to be thinking that adding the Big East was a bad move, the administration at San Diego State and Boise State must have at least thought about the idea.

In this same CBS Sports report, one unnamed conference commissioners said that the schools left behind could be in a no man's land, possibly as an independent. Boise State and San Diego State would have little issue getting back in the Mountain West, but Central Florida, SMU and Houston could be in trouble; as also could be UConn, Cincinnati, South Florida and Temple.

One thing that is for sure is that Tulane can not be blamed for the Big East turning out the way it is.