They kept the name the Big12 and only have 10 teams. Of course they were going to expand and the most likely candidates were the top two AAC teams who were dying to get in. So at least the two best teams from the AAC would be gone. It doesn't take a genius to see that.I doubt that BL needs defending and normally I prefer poking fun at attorneys (as opposed to supporting them) but I don't see how anyone can claim that the writing was on the wall for B12 expansion (it took the loss of their two most valuable assets).
A few years back that conference went through the motions of looking at expansion candidates and determined that no available (AAC) school provided value equivalent to the share of revenue they would take. There was mo reason for anyone to believe that they would try again when they did without needing to replace a loss in membership.