The American Athletic Conference is the new name for the former Big East Conference, sources told ESPN.com. The league is expected to formally announce the new name Thursday.
The traditional Big East conference ended with an extremely succesful season in both football and basketball. Louisville upset heavily favored Florida in the AT&T Sugar Bowl, while five teams reached the men's and women's Final Fours, the most for one conference in NCAA history.
Last month, sources told ESPN that commissioner Mike Aresco favored America 12 Conference for the league's new name. However, the school's presidents rejected the proposal because they didn't want a number included, due to conference expansion from 10 to 12 teams over a span of 2013-2015.
The old Big East needed a new conference name because the Catholic 7 schools -- DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, Seton Hall, St. John's and Villanova -- kept the Big East name while planning to form their new league. The new 10-team Big East begins July 1 with the Catholic 7 schools in addition to Butler, Creighton and Xavier.
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