Part of the reason for my optimism about something happening on the conference front is that UConn has stepped up with reasonably big salaries for Ollie and Diaco that are competitive with middle to lower level P5 schools. You don't increase expenses as revenues are declining unless you have some visibility into revenues turning around in the short to intermediate future.
That means that Herbst believes some combination of:
1) The Big 10 is continuing to evaluate expansion within 5 years and UConn has a reasonably high probability of being invited,
2) the ACC is continuing to evaluate expansion within 5 years and UConn has a reasonably high probability of being invited, and
3) the AAC will be able to meaningfully increase its revenue in the short term (next 2 to 3 years).
Without one or two of those 3 happening within 5 years, the UConn athletic program is not viable in its current form. While Herbst blew the sale, i don't think she is an idiot and I am reasonably confident she can count, so she knows we need more revenue. She would not be continuing spending like we had as a Big East school unless she thought we were going to generate more revenue soon.