Rick Pitino believes the Catholic 7 should take 'Big East' name with it

It appears the next wave of business, shift and billable hours between the Big East and the Catholic 7 is around the corner. How can we tell? When coaches start talking about it, you know plenty is shuffling behind the scenes. You can sense more news is set to break on this in the coming weeks, if not sooner.

And here we've got legendary Rick Pitino speaking on behalf of a league he will very shortly no longer be a part of. With the Big East's breakup coming this summer (Syracuse, Pittsburgh leaving; Notre Dame and Louisville not far behind), mostly due to football wants and wizards, there comes the question of if the league will end up keeping its emblematic name. The Big East was built on basketball but sold its soul for football.

Shouldn't the Catholic 7 be the ones to take the name with them whenever they split off and start their new conference? Pitino says yes. Eric Prisbell of USA Today spoke to Pitino about this on Thursday.

"I think they should (get the name)," Pitino [said]. "I think without question, the Catholic 7 deserves the Big East name. They should have, in my estimation, broken away from the football schools three years ago. I think they waited way too long. They should have been fed up a long time ago.

"You have some of the great, great traditions in college basketball. They should have gotten together, made their strong basketball league, sell their own deal and they should be the Big East. They should be playing in Madison Square Garden."

Pitino later added, "Football is running our country right now."

If the Catholic 7 is going to get the name, it's going to have to sign a whole lot of paper -- and hand over a whole lot of other kind of paper -- in order to do so. My guess? It gets it. Just a hunch, a total, dart-in-the-dark hunch.

Let's enjoy these next six weeks of basketball, though, right? Because the season has been guh-RATE, the myriad tournaments should be as reliable as ever, and then once it's all over, we get to the offseason. That's when news and moves on conference reshifting, renaming and invitations will sprout up again. Inevitable, the next storm coming in and wiping away the assembly of college hoops that we once recognized, knew and embraced.

For more college basketball news, rumors and analysis, follow @EyeOnCBB on Twitter, like us on Facebook and subscribe to the thrice-a-week podcast on iTunes. You can follow Matt Norlander on Twitter here: @MattNorlander.