Could East Carolina End Up in the Colonial For Basketball?

It was a minor quirk of the football announcement last week: East Carolina lost its home for its other sporting teams.

Conference USA requires its members to play football in the conference for their other sports to have a home there. When the Pirates' football team decided to leave for the Big East, so went their conference affiliation for everything else.

That is why the Daily Press' Dave Fairbank is reporting that East Carolina had at least a preliminary discussion with the Colonial Athletic Association's Tom Yeager about its other athletes.

Yeager has been busy with the College of Charleston's decision to officially join the conference next season, so there hasn't been additional discussion on the matter. Still he didn't come right out and say no:

"They were a charter member for 16 years, and the only reason they left was for football," Yeager said this weekend, while attending Old Dominion's football playoff game in Norfolk. "They would bring value in a number of sports, and they certainly fit the geographic footprint. It's not like they're some outpost."

The Pirates have averaged 181.4 in the Pomeroy rankings over the past five seasons, which would put them at the middle to bottom of the pack in the Colonial during that time. With the loss of Virginia Commonwealth, and the pending losses of Georgia State and Old Dominion though, the power of the league has been diminished. There is no telling how a shift out of the more difficult CUSA and into the Colonial could benefit East Carolina.