Big East on hunt for new commissioner

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. - Now that the Big East Conference spring meetings have concluded, one of the conference's immediate goals is finding a league commissioner.

"We will interview search firms next week, and probably a decision [on which firm to use] will be made shortly thereafter and [we will] immediately go into the market," interim commissioner Joe Bailey said Wednesday, the final day of the meetings here. "I think we will fast track it. To the degree that we can move the process quickly, [it] would be in the best interest of everyone."

Bailey, who doesn't want the job, said it would be ideal to have someone in place in time for the Big East's television negotiations in September.

The next commissioner will replace John Marinatto, who resigned on May 8 after less than three tumultuous and rocky years in the position.

Bailey said the league is looking for someone who can advance the conference over an extended period of time.

"You are not looking for an individual that would be some sort of caretaker," he said, "but somebody who would really be able to grow with the conference itself."

Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said Wednesday his school remains committed to the conference.

His statement came one day after Texas athletic director DeLoss Dodds told CBSSports.com that he had conversations with Swarbrick since August 2010 about joining the Big 12 for all sports except football.

Notre Dame is an independent in football. The Irish play all other sports in the Big East.

"I think a little bit more was made out of DeLoss' comment than might be warranted," Swarbrick said. "But it's represented. I talked to my peers a lot. It's not that it's conferences. It's fellow ADs. And it's the nature of the business. I have extraordinary admiration for him. [I] learned an awful lot from talking to him over the years, so it's fairly routine. And the focus tends to be discussions with other ADs, not conferences."

The Big East's basketball coaches' proposal - to have all teams compete in the league tourney when the conference expands to 18 hoops teams in 2013-14 - was approved.

There will be two play-in games involving the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th seeds of the tournaments.

To make it work, an additional day will be added to the tourney. For men's basketball, it is unknown if play-in games will be played in New York's Madison Square Garden, the site of the other tournament games.

"It would be in the New York area, for sure," said Dan Gavitt, Big East associate commissioner. "But the decision was just made. We haven't even considered what those options could be. We haven't studied that.

"Fortunately, we got some time."

The men's play-in games will be on the Monday of the tournament week. On Tuesday, the top four teams will play the remaining bottom four teams. The winners will advance to Thursday's quarterfinals. Meanwhile, seeds five through 12 will play Wednesday for the chance to reach the quarterfinals.

The Big East wants to balance basketball road trips to the New York area, the Philadelphia area, Texas and Florida. For example, one season a team would play at Temple and host Villanova. The next season, it would host Temple and travel to 'Nova.

"That will be our goal to have that kind of geographic balance," Gavitt said. "We could take advantage of some incredible marketplaces, and recruiting areas we have."

The men's basketball teams will continue to play a minimum of an 18-game conference schedule or as many as 20-conference games when the league expands. The women's squads will play 18 games.