[Canalejas]

Those other UCs are either too new to have their sports in the NCAA (UC Merced,) happy to be non-scholarship in D3 (UC Santa Cruz,) or now all clustered together in a non-football D1 conference, the Big West (UCSD, UCR, UCI, UCSB, and UCD.)  

It doesn't seem like any of them are being kept from reaching whatever level they're comfortable with.  To the contrary, the other Big West UCs seem to have gone to bat for San Diego when their CSU conference-mates tried to block the Tritons from joining them.  

But the bears and bruins have long been above the rest. I always assumed that they not only wanted to be together as "co-flagships," but that the regents similarly wanted them to be twins.  I was genuinely surprised by all the earlier reports that the regents and the UCOP consider their role to be largely hands-off when it comes to sports.

Not that it's a precedent, but MVB recently split the very large MPSF into two conferences, the MPSF and the Big West.  The Big West has all of the D1 men's VB teams, including Irvine, Santa Barbara, San Diego, along with CSU Northridge and CSU Long Beach.  The MPSF kept UCLA, along with the traditional powers Pepperdine, USC, BYU, Stanford, and two newbies, Concordia and Grand Canyon.  So...precedent to separate UCLA from the rest of the UC's.

It sounds like the Big West just did what every primary conference does whenever it has enough full members to bring a sport in-house, leave the MPSF. Maybe UCSD finally gave them enough teams to make the move?

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While the UC Regents has to at least be nervous at the moment, my completely uniformed opinion is UCLA goes to the Big 10 without too many problems.

My equally completely uniformed opinion agrees with you. However, I do think there is a non-zero chance we are both wrong. I am beginning to wonder if some UCLA staff and alums aren't happy about this and are prodding/working the Regents. The litigation risk was always there and nobody said anything. Why now after supposedly all is said and done?

The reporting on this is all over the place, so one has to take what they read with much salt - particularly as I have read several incompatible stories. 
With that caveat, my impression from several articles is that the UC President (former president of Ohio State) knew about the move and decided that the various campuses have autonomy to do what they wish on athletics without consulting the Board of Regents. Now, the Board of Regents seems to be thinking otherwise. While university boards don't usually buck their presidents, it does happen - particularly on political hot potatoes.

What an interesting tidbit, that the system president came from Ohio State.  We can spin an entire conspiracy theory from that.

[Canalejas]

Those other UCs are either too new to have their sports in the NCAA (UC Merced,) happy to be non-scholarship in D3 (UC Santa Cruz,) or now all clustered together in a non-football D1 conference, the Big West (UCSD, UCR, UCI, UCSB, and UCD.)  

It doesn't seem like any of them are being kept from reaching whatever level they're comfortable with.  To the contrary, the other Big West UCs seem to have gone to bat for San Diego when their CSU conference-mates tried to block the Tritons from joining them.  

But the bears and bruins have long been above the rest. I always assumed that they not only wanted to be together as "co-flagships," but that the regents similarly wanted them to be twins.  I was genuinely surprised by all the earlier reports that the regents and the UCOP consider their role to be largely hands-off when it comes to sports.

Not that it's a precedent, but MVB recently split the very large MPSF into two conferences, the MPSF and the Big West.  The Big West has all of the D1 men's VB teams, including Irvine, Santa Barbara, San Diego, along with CSU Northridge and CSU Long Beach.  The MPSF kept UCLA, along with the traditional powers Pepperdine, USC, BYU, Stanford, and two newbies, Concordia and Grand Canyon.  So...precedent to separate UCLA from the rest of the UC's.

It sounds like the Big West just did what every primary conference does whenever it has enough full members to bring a sport in-house, leave the MPSF. Maybe UCSD finally gave them enough teams to make the move?

---

While the UC Regents has to at least be nervous at the moment, my completely uniformed opinion is UCLA goes to the Big 10 without too many problems.

My equally completely uniformed opinion agrees with you. However, I do think there is a non-zero chance we are both wrong. I am beginning to wonder if some UCLA staff and alums aren't happy about this and are prodding/working the Regents. The litigation risk was always there and nobody said anything. Why now after supposedly all is said and done?

The reporting on this is all over the place, so one has to take what they read with much salt - particularly as I have read several incompatible stories. 
With that caveat, my impression from several articles is that the UC President (former president of Ohio State) knew about the move and decided that the various campuses have autonomy to do what they wish on athletics without consulting the Board of Regents. Now, the Board of Regents seems to be thinking otherwise. While university boards don't usually buck their presidents, it does happen - particularly on political hot potatoes.

What an interesting tidbit, that the system president came from Ohio State.  We can spin an entire conspiracy theory from that.