We should be immune by now, invulnerable to surprise and numb to shock.

The conference shuffle has trampled geographic boundaries, turned league names into oxymorons and destroyed age-old rivalries. So Syracuse and Pittsburgh now want to abandon the Big East? What's the big deal?

Except this one is different.

This is not Colorado and Utah slithering off to the Pac-10 or even Texas A&M jumping ship to the SEC.

Jim Boeheim and Syracuse have been at the center of so many iconic Big East moments over the years. AP Photo/G. Paul Burnett

This is Syracuse, a founding member of the Big East, slinking off to the greener-for-now fields of the ACC.

In 1979, Syracuse -- following the vision of founder and first commissioner Dave Gavitt -- joined forces with six other schools and formed the Big East. Along the way, the Orange came to define the league as much as any conference member.

Outside of Madison Square Garden, no building represented the magnitude of the Big East better than the Carrier Dome.

From Derrick Coleman to Billy Owens to Carmelo Anthony to Hakim Warrick to Gerry McNamara, only a handful of schools can match the college star-power wattage of the Orange. And in the Mount Rushmore of coaches who have personified the league, the chin-in-his-hand image of Jim Boeheim stands alongside John Thompson, Lou Carnesecca and Jim Calhoun.

Now, on the same weekend Gavitt died of congestive heart failure at the age of 73, Syracuse has helped bury the league he so adored.

Because this is the end of the Big East. Let's not kid ourselves here.

When ACC commissioner John Swofford says he is comfortable with 14 members but is not "philosophically opposed" to 16, you can bet Rutgers and Connecticut are among the schools he is not "philosophically opposed" to filching. A source at UConn says that school is aggressively pursuing a spot in the ACC.

This is happening, folks.

Sure, the Big East may continue in some bastardized form. Plenty of desperate programs already are reaching out, frantic to abandon their own Titanic and jump aboard the merely listing Big East.