I read this a bit differently. Just a bit. This does involve the ability to read between the lines.

First: where? Bozeman. So, basically, columnist talks to the Montana State AD, the AD vents, and after a considerable amount of massaging, it ends up here.

Here's the problem: Montana State wants to be seen as a big deal... but do you think they can afford to send their Olympic sports teams all over the west? Heck no.

Are they in favor of the WAC taking away southern Big Sky schools? Probably.

As that won't happen by itself, would they be in favor of the northern schools breaking away? Probably. It does depend on the schools involved.

What's the core for Montana State? Montana, Idaho, Idaho State... and Weber State. Hey, Weber usually holds up the standard that barely exists for basketball in the Big Sky; they're the only school in the Big Sky that draws more than 3,000 fans per game (they usually double that 3K). Add Eastern Washington and Portland...

...wait a minute.

I don't know about Montana State necessarily. I know Montana recruits Seattle and Denver rather well. The crowd in Sacramento seeing Montana was kind of large. Would they value recruiting in Portland over Sacramento? Would they value Northern Colorado over either? Huge questions there.

Now... would they want Seattle U to join for basketball? I bet they do. Would Seattle make that move? I'll let you guys answer that, and I'm guessing both your answer & SU's answer will converge nicely.

This is where someone will scream about their dream FBS conference. That's not happening BECAUSE that conference will need TV more than all the others, but networks will ask them to pay for TV time instead of the networks doing it. END OF SUBJECT.

So if you can process this:

Eastern Washington
Idaho
Idaho State
Montana
Montana State
Portland State (we'll call it close enough to Seattle to matter)
Sacramento State
Weber State

Now maybe you add Northern Colorado to that. Maybe you don't. If not, Sac is the shameless outlier... after the BSC tries to lure UC Davis away to derisive laughter.

That doesn't mean the Big Sky won't want to manage a larger FOOTBALL conference. That can be done separately from where the southern schools find their conference for their other sports. Thing is, outside that flight to Sacramento, basically you have a conference serviced generally by one airline and, theoretically, is less expensive to manage without giving up too many "schools that matter."