This is from a thread on an OSU site discussing possible B1G expansion and the AAU issue. Someone had raised Cincinnati as a possible candidate. Note the comments toward the end. I have no idea if this guy has any credibility but earlier he was trying to articulate that there may be some viable candidates for The B1G "beyond those you first might think".
"As someone with direct knowledge of the AAU, let me explain a couple of things. Without rehashing the complete saga of Nebraska's ouster, remember that the AAU's decision to cull the herd came as a shock to some of the legacy invites. The criteria promulgated through the biannual review group was fairly consistent with the AAU's broadened outlook, but denial was not just a river in Egypt. There will be more voluntary departures. I doubt that we bear witness to the public shennanigans of Neb. As far as some of the schools listed above which read as a definitive candidates list of next AAU invitees, Cincy is not on that list. This isn't just my wildnerness opinion. The research dollars claimed by Cincy conflate med operations and research. That's more anathama then claiming noncomp ag dollars to majority of schools. Quite frankly, if any univ hospital could claim, eg, cap construction costs as research dollars, well we'd have hundreds of AAU members. Also, be careful with aggregate research dollars; AAU focuses on comp fed dollars, NSF, NIH, etc. Next, be mindful of the size of the university when discussing research dollars. For example, Brandeis has very few (comparatively) research $'s vis a vis Hopkins, Stanford, etc. however AAU norms that out by merely using a faculty/research $ ratio. And while not quite cause/effect, the underlying academic quality of the institution matters. Each AAU school knows how, e.g, avg mcat,lsat,gre of candidate schools' undergrad students. Cincy isn't playing in the same league as the others. (franky, nor are KU, Oregon, and a few other legacy AAU members) That's why the above list is in error. As some of you probably know, Boston Univ was just extended an AAU invite based on total research $'s in the $380m range, of which $280ish was comp federal grants, normed out to 1400 faculty. That is the figure invitees need to shoot for. KU, Oregon, and a couple others are laggards and will be next on the ouster list while Georgia and UConn will be AAU in next 5 years. UConn in particular is getting a tremendous buzz right now in research academia because of its shopping spree for research talent. It truly is amazing what it is doing right now. It's plucking a LOT of talent during a period of angst in the community. This is a football board, but if it interests you, you'll find a lot of the back story of its talent hunt on google. How this relates to realignment? Let's just say the circle of academia intersects the AD/TV circle in a degenerate point, and never forget that point is all about the dollars."
All of these comments about UConn were written BEFORE the recent moves last week by the school and Gov. Malloy which can only serve to further brighten UConn's blip on the B1G radar screen.