That was certainly the most eventful 72 hours of the post-Big Ten + ? / pre-expansion era and Larry Scott, the first-year commissioner of the heretofore conspicuous-by-its-silence Pac 10 is now a known name.

Rather than extend a hand to introduce himself to the nation, Scott cocked his arm and seems ready — to say nothing of empowered — to throw a haymaker.

The most significant news came from the Pac-10 meetings, where presidents voted to give the first-year commissioner Larry Scott authority to move ahead with expansion. With the Pac-10 seriously considering a move to 16 teams, the conference essentially gave Scott permission to hand out invitations to potential new members without consulting its university presidents.

It’s a major, major, major game-changer. But as out-of-nowhere as it seems, it really isn’t. Throughout the basketball postseason, as talk of this expansion sometimes dominated conversation, I got the idea Texas could be a player and if so then the Pac 10 could have open arms.

(March 5) …Also, I could see Texas heading to the Pac 10. The Pac 10 is the best conference for Olympic sports. Texas would love that as opposed to swim meets in Colorado, volleyball matches at Iowa State, so on and so forth. The football and basketball schedules would be very good and there’d be no trouble getting non-conference games against Oklahoma. That rivalry is too big to die.

(April 30) …You mentioned the wild card, though. The Pac Ten is going to have a major chance to alter things. Texas will give that league serious consideration for the Olympic sports alone, especially if the Big 12 starts to shake. The Pac Ten (it has 10 teams!) can go to 14 and pull some of those midwest teams, which would really, really hurt the Big 12 if it loses Missouri and/or Nebraska and thus make the Texas thing more plausible.

And now it’s happening in some variation of the above. The Olympic sports matter there, and if you’re going to have a conference network, it makes the programming much more enticing, possible and marketable.

So how has this happened before Jim Delaney was able to grab his gun … let alone pull the trigger? Now the Big Ten is reactive and figuring out what to do next, which, obviously, entails hurrying the heck up already.

The dominoes are scattered yet again and it’s time to reassemble them. Let’s try this:

1) Pac 10 (it has to go first now)
2) Missouri/Nebraska and the alleged ultimatum (and how hard is this, if it does in fact exist, since neither has a waiting offer from the Big Ten?)
3) Big Ten (if Mizzou/Nebraska say no to the Big 12, you know happens next … of they say yes, go to No. 4)
4) Notre Dame (nothing is imminent, but if the Big Ten has egg on its face, it’s going to go all-out for the Irish)
5) Big 12 remnants (they need a home … and they’re not the most desirable bunch on the map
6) Big East (a lot depends on Nos. 2-3-4)