There is definitely a faction of Ute fans who claim to be connected (or, more accurately, know someone who claims to be connected) who say this is a done deal and has been for months.
I'm not in that category. This is a very organic situation and one that could just as easily leave Utah out, as in.
I'm not sure what to say about us versus KU. That's an intriguing decision for the PAC11. I don't think it's cut and dry if you're looking at it objectively.
KY pluses: Current AAU, Top 5 all-time basketball program (I'm pulling that out of my rear, but that's my guess).
Utah pluses: Recent/current football success. (Isn't that what's driving this?) A bigger market (slightly), and frankly, a growing, and much, much younger market. (Isn't that the other thing driving this?).
We're a football market. Particularly, a college football market. I don't have my hands on the research, but while were the #31 TV market today, give that 20 years, and we're probably AT LEAST top 25. We tend to have a lot of kids around here and we like to stick around. But honestly, you don't have to tell the PAC brass this. They've already been doing this research for the last several months.
While we are no KU in hoops, I'd put us as no worse than a top 20 all-time basketball program (some ESPN or SI article ranked us somewhere around 11-15 all time, but I'm not going to hunt that down because - who really cares, right?). It was just 12 years ago we were playing KY for the championship. It was just five years ago we were in the sweet 16 with Bogut. It was just two years ago that we won the MWC championship and conf tournament. That goes with our host of other sweet 16's and Final Fours, NBA draft picks, etc. Our success extends long before Majerus, lest you think it was just a one-coach thing. In fact, Rick ranks probably as our 3rd-best coach/era, but definitely the most recent. Our hoops is nothing to sneeze at, and frankly would be considered immediately second best in a pod with you, us, ASU and UofA. (Gotta give the nod to the 'Cats.) For a quick view of Ute hoop success, check out the table on the right side of this Wikipedia page. It's a good summary:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Utes_men's_basketball