The Big 12: 12 again or less?

How would this be for irony: The Big 12 preys on another conference's instability to solidify itself for the future.

According to a report in Thursday's Dallas Morning News, the Big 12 may annex TCU and other Big East Conference members.

If Missouri stays in the Big 12 instead of defecting to the Southeastern Conference, the Big 12 might be content to merely add TCU and be settled with 10 schools. According to this story in the Newark Star-Ledger, TCU would have to pay a $5 million exit fee to the Big East, which it joined late last year.

The Morning News reports that if Missouri leaves, the Big 12 might target TCU, Cincinnati, Louisville and West Virginia of the Big East to get to 12 schools. That would give all those schools a safe football harbor in the shaky Big East, which is losing Pittsburgh and Syracuse to the Atlantic Coast Conference, and has Connecticut apparently anxious to follow. Other Big East members are Rutgers and South Florida.

However, Dennis Dodd of CBSsports.com wrote late Thursday that someone intimately involved in the conference's television negotiations said the league shouldn't expand in order to maximize its earning power.

If Missouri left the Big 12 and the league did add those four Big East schools, this would seem to be the simple way to put them in divisions:

North/East: Cincinnati, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Louisville, West Virginia.

South/West: Baylor, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, TCU, Texas Tech.

For those who say the South would be top-heavy in football, it already was before the league lost two members after last season. Or maybe the Big 12 would take a page from the Big Ten and divide teams without regard to geography.

That would be quite a men's basketball league. Cincinnati, Louisville and West Virginia have pedigrees. TCU, not so much.

Cincinnati and Louisville don't bring much football oompf. They've had their moments over the years, but they don't resonate nationally. West Virginia and TCU have higher profiles. TCU, in fact, is 95-22 since 2002. West Virginia is 88-31 in that time. TCU has a stadium renovation that will bring its stadium to 43,000 with the potential to allow for 50,000 or more.

The average home attendance in 2010:

West Virginia 56,325

Louisville 50,648

TCU 42,466

Cincinnati 35,067

The 2010 average attendance of Big 12 teams that haven't left for other leagues:

Texas 100,654

Oklahoma 84,738

Missouri 61,540

Texas Tech 57,108

Oklahoma State 50,812

Kansas State 49,816

Iowa State 45,395

Kansas 44,851

Baylor 40,043