Was it dead before Pitt and Cuse left? We had TCU coming in and by my recollection, this round of realignment began with the Pitt and Cuse jump.
I would definitely say the answer to that was no. TCU was on their way in and the league seemed to feel it had a viable enough product in both sports to merit opening bidding up to networks beyond just ESPN. A few underhanded deals later and Pitt and Cuse were on their way out.
This league was not a "shadow of what it used to be" when they left. The 2010-11 Big East was one of the best conferences in the history of college basketball. The Big East has a much better BCS record than the ACC does. ESPN didn't want to lose rights to the best basketball conference in the country, the ACC didn't want to upset ESPN (and saw dollar signs if they could renegotiate their TV deal), and Pitt and Syracuse were afraid they wouldn't get a better offer if they stuck around.
Their departure put this league in the state it's in now. It sounds like we could have added Navy and either Army or Air Force, and had we gotten two of them, there would have been a renegotiation to the out-clause that included forfeiture of future television rights, as football would be more profitable with a conference championship game. WVU would still be here if this had come to pass, simply because the out-clause that would have been negotiated (instead of the crappy $10M one) would have actually prevented them from leaving.
