[2] The American retains the Big East's football structure and inherited its single automatic berth in the Bowl Championship Series.

Following the decisions by Georgetown, St. John's, and fellow Pennsylvania school Villanova to vote against Penn State's admission, then-Big Ten administrator and future-Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese said the conference would "rue the day" they rejected the Nittany Lions.

[12] Virginia Tech would be forced to wait until 2000–01 for full admission,[13] and Temple remained a football-only member until 2004, when it was voted out of the conference due to poor attendance figures, lack of playing success, and inadequate facilities.

In September 2010, in the wake of a Division I realignment that affected a number of conferences around the country, the Big East asked Villanova to consider becoming a football member.

On February 9, 2012, the Big East invited the University of Memphis to join as a full member in all sports to begin play in 2013.

On March 7, 2012, it was announced that Temple University would return to the conference for football in the 2012 season, filling the void left by West Virginia.

[33] Less than two weeks after Louisville announced its departure for the ACC, multiple media reports indicated that the Big East's seven remaining non-FBS schools, all Catholic institutions, were considering a mass exit from the conference.

[40] On December 31, Boise State announced they had decided to stay in the Mountain West conference, leaving the Big East, much like TCU, without ever playing a game in it.

Rumors of the MWC looking at potentially adding Houston and SMU as its 13th and 14th football members, both of which had stated they would join the Big East in 2013, continued to circulate as well.

[42] On April 3, the football-playing schools, which retained the old Big East's structure and its automatic BCS bid, announced they would operate as the American Athletic Conference starting on July 1.

[44] Mike Aresco, the Executive Vice President of CBS Sports' Programming, was named Commissioner of The Big East on August 14, 2012.

Cincinnati, Connecticut, South Florida, and Temple remained in the old Big East, which changed its name to the American Athletic Conference.

[59] The Big East Conference sponsored championship competition in eleven men's and thirteen women's NCAA sanctioned sports.

[61] The Big East was founded by seven charter schools in 1979 (Providence, St. John's, Georgetown, Syracuse, Seton Hall, Connecticut, and Boston College).

Two years later, the Seton Hall Pirates also advanced to the NCAA Championship Game, but were defeated by the Michigan Wolverines in an overtime heartbreaker.

Over the past two decades, UConn has made many deep runs in NCAA tournament, playing in the Elite 8 nine times and making four appearances in the Final Four.

Hall of Fame coach Jim Calhoun's program, led by such stars as Ray Allen, Richard "Rip" Hamilton, Caron Butler, Emeka Okafor and Kemba Walker, averaged nearly 26 wins per year during that time span, won numerous Big East regular season and tournament championships, and claimed the National Championship in 1999, 2004 and 2011.

At the start of the 2008–2009 season, many sports analysts predicted that the conference would surpass the record by sending 10 teams to the 2009 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament.

At the finish of the 2010–11 season, the Big East eclipsed its record, sending 11 teams to the 2011 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament.

[66][67][68] The conference has a number of former players currently playing in the National Basketball Association with some of the most recent being Ray Allen, Caron Butler, Carmelo Anthony, Ryan Gomes, Austin Croshere, Richard "Rip" Hamilton, Ben Gordon, Emeka Okafor, Troy Murphy, Hakim Warrick, Quincy Douby, Dante Cunningham, Randy Foye, Kyle Lowry, Rudy Gay, Matt Carroll, Jake Voskuhl, Etan Thomas, Samuel Dalembert, Charlie Villanueva, Donté Greene, Ron Artest, Chris Quinn, Jason Hart, Tim Thomas, Aaron Gray, Daniel Ochefu, Sam Young, DeJuan Blair, Wilson Chandler, Jeff Green, Joe Alexander, Marcus Williams, Jonny Flynn, Terrence Williams, Earl Clark, Roy Hibbert, Wesley Johnson, Wesley Matthews, Lazar Hayward, Jimmy Butler, Steve Novak, Jae Crowder, Maalik Wayns, and Darius Johnson-Odom.

In 2009 two Big East schools met in the national championship game (Connecticut and Louisville) and the South Florida women's basketball team defeated Kansas to become the WNIT champions.

In 2011, UConn and Notre Dame both made the Final Four; the Irish defeated the Huskies in their semifinal but lost to Texas A&M in the NCAA Championship Game.

Big East began football during the 1991–1992 season with the addition of Miami and was a founding member of the Bowl Championship Series.

Temple had joined the Big East for football only in 1991, but found it difficult to compete with the other league teams and drew very poor attendance to its games.

After completing a fourth quarter comeback to beat Pittsburgh on the final day of the season, the Bearcats narrowly missed a spot in the BCS national championship game, as No.

[73] In 2010, the Big East created a men's lacrosse league with Georgetown, Notre Dame, Providence, Rutgers, St. John's, Syracuse, and Villanova participating.

On the men's side six teams won Big East Championships as well: Georgetown, Louisville, Notre Dame, Providence, Syracuse and Villanova.

[76] In both the 2009 and 2010 season, the Villanova women captured the NCAA Cross Country Team Championship as they have largely dominated the Big East over the years with numerous Conference Titles.

who won the 2010 individual champion, the top-ranked Wildcats captured their second straight NCAA Division I women's cross country championship.

Reid sprinted past Georgetown's Emily Infeld and Oregon's Jordan Hasay in the final 200 meters to win the individual title.