Seems to be a pretty heavy rumor. I actually think this would be a good fit as theyre not out in the middle of nowhere like TCU and have a fairly strong football team and a very good basketball team. http://centralny.ynn.com/content/top_stories/548837/is-temple-football-rejoining-the-big-east-/
Location was never a big determining factor for inclusion into the Big East. TCU got picked up because they are a huge money draw. Temple is building a reputation for decent football which will always attract money. I'm not sure how I would feel about them bringing their basketball team along. 17 teams is a bloated conference but having the odd number is just weird to me.
No chance, unless they're willing to be football-only again, and even that is extremely unlikely. Temple was a failed experiment. They have little fan base and little athletic success. If you're going to go after a Philadelphia program, go with Villanova, even though there are issues with Nova as well. Every team's coaching staff that could potentially be invited to the BE is using it as a recruiting pitch. Villanova is. I bet UCF and ECU are as well.
UCF has been using that as a recruiting tool since 2008, ECU since 2009. The Temple experiment happened, and it sucked.
Part of the problem with Temple is actually similar to the problems UNLV has in football. It's an urban campus that has no football tradition but very strong basketball tradition and plays miles off campus. Now I understand the Linc is 100 times nicer then what UNLV plays in but it's tough to draw fans to watch a mediocre product when there are plenty of other entertainment options in town.
