All that's left now is to find Cal State Bakersfield a conference home.

Longwood University , the Farmville, Virginia school with an enrollment of around 4,800, is finally headed to a conference after spending its first five years in Division I as an independent, and the Lancers didn't even have to settle from a geographic or competitive perspective to make the move. On July 1st, Longwood will become the Big South Conference's 12th member, a move that seemed inevitable, even if it took forever to happen. The Big South features three other Virginia schools--Liberty, Radford, and VMI--and eight in the Carolinas. The travel factor, along with the possibility of increased access to NCAA Championships, makes this a great move for one of Division I's newest members.

I've updated the Conference Changes for 2012-13 (And Beyond) page with this information.

(HT: Patrick Stevens of The Washington Times @D1scourse)

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College sports' worst-kept secret is now official, as the Big East's football-driven expansion is finally underway. Central Florida, Houston, and SMU are moving from Conference USA for all sports, while Boise State and San Diego State are joining up for football only, all in time for the 2013-14 academic year.

Now the fun is ready to begin again...

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The 2011 college football season is about halfway over and the 2011-12 basketball campaign mercifully starts in less than two weeks, but despite all of the action on the field and the promise of excitement on the hardwood, realignment is still occupying too much of the nation's focus. At the moment, everyone is seemingly waiting on big time, football-related moves to take place. Missouri is supposed to be moving to the SEC at any moment. And since Google Maps is apparently blocked at the Big 12's offices in suburban Dallas, West Virginia is in line to replace the Tigers. That move, reportedly due to happen tomorrow or Thursday, would leave the Big East scrambling. It's even possible that South Florida could join them in the formerly-Heartland-focused conference.

And then there's the whole 32-team megaconference idea floating around. The less said about that the better.

However, today there was a piece of actual realignment news that both impacts basketball significantly and makes geographic and financial sense. (Read on for more...)

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Back on Sunday, I tweeted this sentence in response to the news that the Big East would pursue SMU as a travel partner for the TCU Horned Frogs, who were all set to join the conference on July 1, 2012.

For each university president in favor of adding a Texas school to an Eastern conference, there's an accountant who thinks that person is an idiot.

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And on the seventh day, the Atlantic Coast Conference's powers that be did not rest. Instead, they expanded their loop, making Pittsburgh and Syracuse the league's 13th and 14th members. This move is effective with the 2012-13 academic year, so Big East road trips for the Panthers and Orange this season will be interesting, to put it nicely.

As a fan of the Orange(men) for most of my life, this was a day I knew would eventually come, dating back to the 2005 conference realignment, when the Virginia Legislature all but vetoed Syracuse's entry by forcing Virgina Tech's admission as the ACC's 12th team. For a long time I was vehemently against it, but now that things are about to get crazy, I've come to accept it, particularly since this means a few more convenient road trips during the basketball, football, and lacrosse seasons.

I've updated the Conference Changes For 2012-13 page with the new alignments for the ACC and Big East, as well as those for the Big 12 and SEC, as it appears Texas A&M's move is inevitable. But don't get comfortable, as further changes will likely be appearing after the Texas Board of Regents meets Monday and Oklahoma's gathers nearly simultaneously.

They're about to push Play for the biggest game of musical chairs ever staged in the United States. It's anyone's guess as to who will be sitting where when it stops, and who will be left standing, completely forlorn.

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In Part One of this doubleheader, I took a look at all of the conference changes on tap for the 2011-12 season. There are even more on the horizon for 2012-13, though the Horizon League isn't affected.

Part Two begins after the jump with a look at another change in a BCS conference.

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Right about this time last summer, the normally lazy and quiet college sports offseason was rocked by a wave of realignment. While a transformation of the six BCS leagues into four 16-team megaconferences never got past the rumor stage, the landscape did change significantly, and those ripple effects will first be felt this season.

This summer, college blogs across SB Nation have realigning conferences in their own way. Over at our Wyoming blog, Cowboy Altitude, they've envisioned a semi-post-apocalyptic world where rising fuel costs and budget cuts force schools to align themselves in more geographically-compact groups.

However, most of our other blogs have thrown reality out the window by creating completely new conferences based on what each program delivers from a competitive and financial standpoint in our SB Nation Conference Re-Draft Project (1st and 2nd Round results).

Here at Blogging the Bracket, I'd like to bring you back to reality for a moment (or two) with a pair of posts. In Part One, I'll take a look at the conference changes that go into effect for the upcoming basketball season, with a look at 2012-13, when there are still more moves afoot, in Part Two tomorrow.

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On Wednesday, I wrote about the SEC's decision to finally join the rest of the Big Six conferences by moving away from a divisional format for basketball. Today, the Big 12, which despite the name will have two fewer members for the foreseeable future, made an announcement regarding its conference tournament. Basically, the Big 12 will adopt the old Pac-10 format. The Big 12's postseason event will feature all 10 teams, with the top six receiving byes to the quarterfinals. Nos. 7 through 10 will play Wednesday for the right to likely lose to the top two seeds.

The Big 12 regular season will shift from a 16-game divisionally-based schedule to a full 18-game round-robin this season. In other words, league play will be a grind, particularly with two typical basement dwellers, Colorado and Nebraska, gone.

Up next, the Big East, who has to figure out what to do when TCU becomes team No. 17 in 2012-13. The coaches have already voted to include each and every team, but the athletic directors have the final say. Let's hope they deliver some sanity to the situation.

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