St. John's, Seton Hall discuss leaving Big East Conference, per report

The complete destruction of the Big East Conference may now have a time clock of six months, as Tuesday ESPN's Brent McMurphy confirmed a report from Mark Blaudschun of AJerseyGuy.com that the league's seven catholic, non-FBS schools met with commissioner Mike Aresco Sunday in New York to talk about them splitting from the conference.

According to both reports, the schools that met with Aresco were the St. John's Red Storm, Seton Hall Pirates, Marquette Golden Eagles, Georgetown Hoyas, DePaul Blue Demons, Providence Friars and Villanova Wildcats.

The issues brought up at the meeting dealt with: whether or not the seven schools have the power to dissolve the league; if the teams do dissolve can they bring along the league's assets and brand name; the league's new media right deal, which is going to bring in less money to the basketball-only schools than its current deal.

A source with knowledge of the situation said that until July 1, the seven have the majority votes and the necessary three-fourths to have controlling power. There are only three remaining football members -- Connecticut, Cincinnati and South Florida.

If the schools are successful in dissolving the league, both reports say one or three more teams would need to be added to the new league - schools of the Atlantic 10 Conference and Missouri Valley Conference could be targets.

All-in-all, the seven schools gave a six-month deadline to decide on what they would like to do.

Starting in 2013, the Big East Conference will be without the Syracuse Orange and Pittsburgh Panthers. Meanwhile, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Louisville Cardinals and Rutgers Scarlet Knights are expected to be out of the conference by 2014.

St. John's and Seton Hall were one of seven original remembers of the Big East, which was founded in 1979.