UConn has released 23 pages of e-mails detailing the school's September discussions about conference realignment to the Connecticut Post, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request. As far as I can tell the Post hasn't actually published the 23 pages (which is disappointing) (Correction: the emails are contained in the slideshow at the top of the Post's article), but the paper's coverage of them paints a portrait of how top UConn officials reacted to the news that Syracuse and Pittsburgh would be leaving the Big East.
President Susan Herbst asserted a strong degree of control, both publicly and privately. From the Post article, here she is writing to interim AD Paul Pendergast:
"We'll tell you what we know as we get more people we can trust, who have actual information of value," Herbst wrote on the afternoon of Sept. 17 to Pendergast and other officials. "If anyone calls, don't take the call or deflect to me. It's sensitive right now, and lots of crazy talk, so let's not cross wires."
She followed up the next day with this:
"we are not desperate at all, and some patience is involved" as she noted that she was in contact with "many" university presidents and conference commissioners. "In general, at this point at least, ADs (athletic directors) are not running the discussion around the country and a lot is happening."
The total picture is an interesting, if not terribly revealing one. The Post article does not mention specific contact with other conferences. UConn held back 32 additional pages of e-mails, and you have to imagine that contact with other schools and conferences, if it existed, would be in those documents.
UPDATE: I've now read through all the e-mails, (you can to if you're so inclined by clicking here). Anything of interest in them is well covered in the article, but it does make me really curious as to what is in the other 32 pages.