Fair enough. Wasn't trying to put down your program. However, fair warning: The B1G is very old-money-oriented. You think because you're a state school that should make you the next pick-up. However your complaints about the ACC (and some of them are warranted) the Big Ten operates on a similar elitist model. Indiana and Minnesota have the same votes as Michigan and Ohio State.
And it isn't so much about Boston College as it is Boston College AND the chance to rub shoulders with other elite institutions in the Boston area. Same with Rutgers and them being so close to Princeton, Columbia, NYU, etc.. Maybe you can convince them by talking about how close UConn is to Yale, Brown, etc.. You think I'm pulling stuff from my rear end? This is the way academics and college presidents think. Look at how flexible they were when they agreed to an association agreement with Johns Hopkins. Even Delany joked about it during the press conference.
Go to 4:05
I know you don't think much of Boston College and Syracuse as institutions but they've been at this game for much longer and UConn is only starting to catch up. Goodness, they even tried to convince Notre Dame, even though the Irish wanted nothing to do with them.
The Midwest have had this complex about the East Coast for some time, which was why they resisted eastern schools for a long time. Only recently have they started moving this way because they aren't dummies and realize the way the demographic trends are going. If they could access the young people living in cities from Boston all the way down to Atlanta, including the cities of Philly, New York, Washington, Baltimore, Charlotte, Raleigh, Richmond and Norfolk/Hampton Roads, it would be a tremendous achievement for them and help counter the declines in Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago and Milwaukee. It is a very remote possibility, mind you, but something like this would have to be tried and would include a good number and right profile of schools in order for them to not feel isolated in a new conference. Even if all those young people aren't sports fans they still want to access them.
Here's how I know what I'm talking about:
Go to 8:22. Take good stock of the words Delany used to justify the addition of Rutgers. Institutions. Changes in landscape. All clues to what the presidents back in Chicago are thinking.
Please note that none of this means I'm putting down UConn. I'm just telling things as I think they are.