Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany: 'Never say never' to expansion

CHICAGO - Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany told reporters Thursday morning the league remains on the sidelines and inactive in the recent round of expansion.

"We are as happy as we can be with what we have," Delany said from Big Ten basketball media day. "We're monitoring the landscape. I think that the (league's August) statement included a reference to under certain circumstances the conference could (expand). That's out there. I think it simply said we would look at expansion - you would never say never - but I can just tell you the comfort level of where we are with whom we're there with is at a pretty high level."

The Big Ten invited Nebraska as its 12th member in June 2010, setting off a realignment circus in college athletics. In the last 16 months three Big 12 members - Nebraska, Colorado and Texas A&M - have either left or will leave that league. A fourth, Missouri, could bolt for the Southeastern Conference within days. Big East schools Syracuse and Pittsburgh announced plans to September to join the Atlantic Coast Conference, and TCU will join the Big 12 via the Mountain West and Big East conferences.

Other shifts also are lurking with West Virginia and Louisville vying to join the Big 12. Conference USA and the Mountain West have announced a football merger that could include the Big East. BYU and Boise State also have been discussed for multiple conferences. Other schools have left the Western Athletic Conference for the Mountain West.

Big Ten officials announced last December it had shut down active expansion discussions. Delany released a statement in August to confirm the league's position on expansion had not changed and reiterated those points Thursday.

"When I think about Louisville or West Virginia or Notre Dame or BYU it's more as a sports fan than it is as a conference commissioner," Delany said. "Because our conference is not involved in these issues except as an observer monitoring; we talk about things from time to time. But I think it's been pretty clear and repeated on a number of occasions about how pleased we are with where we are.

"There's expansion stories all over the country but we're not part of any of them. When we were involved, we were very direct about the fact that we were going to look at expansion. We released a statement about how we were going to do that."

Delany said he has spoken recently with Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick about hockey and football scheduling, but not expansion.

"On the issue of expansion, no, and have not in years really," Delany said.

"We're out of the discussion, except as an interested observer. I'm sure there were people on the West Coast who watched what we were doing when we were active and they were not. We watch with interest what others are doing. It's important in the business to watch and to monitor. But that's been the extent of our interaction."