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Whether the AAC is a major conference, especially when they lose Louisville, is debatable at best. Conference realignment has brought a sharp, ironclad line to football in terms of the major/non major divide, but left basketball more clouded than ever. The Big Ten, ACC, Big XII, and Pac 12 are the four best leagues, and then there's kind of a gradient as you go from the SEC to the Big East to the AAC to the Mountain West to the A-10 to the MVC etc. At this point, I think you define mid-major in football terms. The teams that aren't collecting the ungodly football TV money checks are mid-majors.

Not just good basketball teams, but good basketball programs that are going to draw fans in the seats and eyeballs on TV. Louisville may be leaving but that doesn't prevent the Memphis @ UConn OT matchup between two ranked teams I watched on ESPN this past Sunday.

Ohio

Miami

Cincinnati
Xavier

Toledo

Bowling Green

Akron

Kent State

Cleveland State

Youngstown State

Assuming we can't get UC, we also don't invite Youngstown St and make it a round 10.  If and when the non-BCS schools are dropped to a different division in football would be the perfect time to form this conference for all sports including football.  The collective conference/state pride, rivalries, and following would rival OSU...like a network of small businesses working together to compete with Walmart.

That is the exact reason why I love it.  Every single game is within 4 hours of each other, and every match up has friendly rivalries scattered all over the state of various alumni and fans of these schools.  I am always more tuned into the Ohio teams than I am NIU or Buffalo or whoever because I know people personally who I will be able to discuss/trash talk about the games with.  Media coverage and TV contracts would be easy to get adequately, Fox Sports Ohio/Cincy would jump all over that contract...and each major Ohio news outlet would have writers dedicated to the conference.  And I feel like the camaraderie and collective pride of the conference would be unmatched.

Maybe we could even talk OSU into playing the defending champion the following season (laughter).

I think Tulane basketball will benefit from playing in a conference like this. As teams like Memphis and UConn come in to play in NOLA, program interest will grow and Tulane will start picking up solid recruits.

The MAC's RPI is as good as it has been in awhile. If the MAC can continue to have only 2-3 teams below 200 and up the number of teams in the Top 100 from 4 to 6 an at-large bid is inevitable.

The AAC would clearly be a major upgrade but beyond that, staying in the MAC can work especially in hoops. Only further igniting my confidence is the incoming MAC recruiting class. Besides a good class from OHIO, the entire MAC did very well. With the tournament at 68, there is no reason the MAC should not start to see 2 bids with some consistency.
 

And I don't know where you got Ohio is losing population.  Outside of Cleveland, that is not true.  The total population of Ohio has not declined at all, and people don't realize it is the 7th most populous state despite being the 34th largest state.

I never claimed it was booming, just disputed your claim population was declining...it is not.  Either way you are splitting hairs, as I mentioned we are the 7th most populous state in a not very big area and that isn't changing anytime soon.  Arguing whether the state population will be 13 mil or 14 mil in 20 years doesn't change that.

It boils down to me thinking the close in-state rivalries would add more committed fans and attract the attention of more students, alumni & locals of these schools and that is most important...while you think a more spread out geographic area would attract more casual fans and national interest which is more important.  So be it.