Sports

West Virginia not in Big 12 yet: sources

No decision was made by the Big 12 to add West Virginia, Louisville is still a candidate to replace Missouri in the conference and a decision about expansion is not expected before next week, a person with knowledge of the Big 12’s discussions told The Associated Press.

The person spoke Wednesday on condition of anonymity because the Big 12’s internal discussions are being conducted privately.

West Virginia appeared to be the choice of the Big 12 presidents after a Monday board of directors’ meeting, but now Big East rival Louisville is back in the picture.

The person said “no real decision was made on Monday” and the Big 12 is not committed to any school.

Missouri is likely leaving the Big 12 for the Southeastern Conference. The person said Big 12 officials are not holding out hope that Missouri will stay, but said West Virginia and Louisville should not be considered finalists to become the Big 12’s new 10th member.

“Those two certainly have been discussed a lot,” the person said. “And I wouldn’t rule out other schools just yet.”

BYU also has been considered as a potential new member of the Big 12. The person said no meetings have been set up with Big 12 officials and schools outside the conference.

“We’re still discussing among ourselves,’ the person said.

Big 12 leaders have been considering possibly expanding back to 12 members, the number it had before Colorado and Nebraska left after last season and Texas A&M announced earlier this month that it was moving to the SEC. The Big 12 has already replaced the Aggies with TCU, a move that hurt the beleaguered Big East. TCU was set to leave the Mountain West Conference to join the Big East in 2012, but was instead diverted by the Big 12 to reunite with former Southwest Conference rivals Texas, Baylor and Texas Tech.

But the person said it is unlikely the Big 12 would go that route and invite both West Virginia and Louisville in the process.

There were media reports that Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell reached out to Big 12 officials to lobby for Louisville and that helped put the brakes the move to invite West Virginia.

“There’s been outside influences for every school,” the person said. “Everybody’s politicians are calling. I don’t mean that in a negative way. They’ve all been positive and no one has tried to coerce anybody into anything.”

West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, who is chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, which has oversight of sports, released a statement Wednesday saying that he, too, is involved.

“The Big 12 picked WVU on the strength of its program — period. Now the media reports that political games may upend that. That’s just flat wrong. I am doing and will do whatever it takes to get us back to the merits,” he said.

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, in a statement emailed to the AP, said an investigation might be in order.

“If these outrageous reports have any merit — and especially if a United States Senator has done anything inappropriate or unethical to interfere with a decision that the Big 12 had already made — then I believe that there should be an investigation in the U.S. Senate, and I will fight to get the truth. West Virginians and the American people deserve to know exactly what is going on and whether politics is interfering with our college sports,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Big East continues to try to rebuild a football conference that has already lost two of its longest tenured members, Pittsburgh and Syracuse (to the Atlantic Coast Conference), along with member-to-be, TCU.

The league has been trying to add six schools — Boise State, Air Force and Navy just for football and Houston, SMU and Central Florida in all sports — to its existing six of West Virginia and Louisville (at least for now), Connecticut, Rutgers, South Florida and Cincinnati to become a 12-team football league.

Now it might be in the market to replace another member, though for which one remains unclear.

Associated Press writer Frederic J. Frommer in Washington contributed to this report.