First, I readily admit that I might be completely off on my intrepretation of the rules, but according to Brett McMurphy's article on the subject (http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/8742607/seven-catholic-schools-leaning-leaving-big-east-sources-say) ..., well, let me go through my rational step by step:

(1) It takes a 2/3 majority vote to dissolve the Big East
(2) Due to the teams leaving and joining the league, there are only 10 members eligible to vote on disolving the conference (the 7 Catholic schools + Cincinnati, UCONN, and USF...Temple does NOT get a vote because its not yet a full member), meaning that the 7 Catholic NON-FBS schools have the votes to dissolve the league
(3) McMurphy states "If the seven schools decide to move to a new league, they would keep their automatic berth in the NCAA tournament. NCAA rules state that as long as a group of seven universities have been in the same league for five years, they would keep their bid after a move together."

Leaving aside what happens with the name or previously earned NCAA tournament monies, I think this means that the 7 BB-only schools could vote to dissolve the league and "instantly" reform it around themselves, with or without the addition of varied other members (e.g. Dayton, Xavier, Butler, etc) without worry of losing their conference's NCAA-autobid.

If I read the rule correctly, it also means that the remaining schools (or Big East Refugees as CMoney named them) would NOT immediately have an automatic NCAA-tournament spot were they to try to form a standalone league: among the current-future Big East membership, there is no combination of 7 schools that have been in the same conference as one-another for 5 years.

According to today's papers and sports talk radio out here,the seven Catholic Scools are looking to form a new "Basketball Centric" league with Butler, Xavier and possibly 3 other schools.
 
A couple of interesting points:

1.The Catholic schools can leave the Big East without penalties

2.There is a question who has the right to use the name "Big East".
   
3.Even though these are basketball only schools,there are rumors that, even with additional football schools coming in,the BE could loose its automatic BCS bid .

Sorry,I wasn't clear.
The rumor is that the automatic BCS Bid may be gone for 2013.

I think when they talk about 2014, they mean the BCS games that are played in 2014, at the end of the 2013 season.

I think Duquesne would be included because of the Pittsburgh TV market, Dayton doesn't have  market and Butler doesn't either.  I think the Catholic schools should work together and leave Richmond URI out of it

Butler has the Indianapolis market, while Duquesne is not even on the radar screen in Pittsburgh(sorry John Rhodes). They draw poorly to their 6k seat arena. Pitt dominates the news and it will only get worse when they are playing an ACC schedule. In the Post Gazette, Pitt gets a pro-like box score and front sports page coverage. Duquesne gets middle page and high school type box score. When Duquesne beats WVU and Roethlisberger gets a hang nail, the hang nail gets more coverage.

Right, it seems like the hoops schools are going to be more concerned about NCAA win shares than tv contracts.

Xavier should be excited. It's absurd, but contextually understandable, that the Catholics have never gotten on the same page.

If you think about who XU was playing and how many people they did it in front of 20 years ago in the Cincinnati Gardens, you understand.