Let's say everything you posted is true. The admin looks at the AAC and says it's too unstable, travel is too much and it's not worth the risk.
SMU was decimated by injuries this year or they would have made the field. The AAC is a 3 bid league this year with UConn tanking and Memphis rebuilding. What happens if UConn and Memphis getting it rolling again? That's the 7th best conference in America if not higher every year.
Teams get bids not leagues but leagues make it much easier to get bids. Look at the difficulty of schools outside the major conferences being to come up with a schedule to get an at large bid in OOC play. Your league doesn't hold up it's end of the bargain and you're held hostage by your league. Look at Middle Tennessee State this year.
Do you want to be in a multi bid league playing a high level of basketball? I don't think the future is as bright in the A10 and college basketball is filled with old multi bid leagues were I'm sure they thought everything was fine there too.
Look at the winds of change in college basketball and the consolidation of bids/power into a few leagues. Being the richest guy in the graveyard doesn't do you any good.
Gonzaga with this Mountain West talk and flirtations with the Big East has pretty clearly decided the WCC is bad for business. I don't think they'd be sorry going to the Mountain West and I don't think Gregg Marshall is sorry he's in the AAC. Football isn't ideal but it's better than being left behind to drift into irrelevance.
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