It appears that in a couple of years, if not sooner, the Big
East will no longer exist, at least in concept, if even in name. Most the major
news sites are reporting it official that the seven Catholic schools, all
non-football, will spin off to form their own new league. I applaud this move,
and am very happy to see it.
I will be forthright with you. When Syracuse announced it was leaving the
Big East for the ACC, I have been secretly hoping the Big East conference would
fold before next season began. The idea of a Big East conference without
Syracuse sickens me. I really just want
the whole conference to go away.
In reality, the Big East I grew up loving, disappeared a
long time ago. The erosion started with
the addition of football schools Miami and Virginia Tech, though that was something
that was more of a nuisance. Adding
Notre Dame made some sense as it was a Catholic school, and its profile would
match much of the Big East. I was
willing to overlook the geographic anomaly there, but the inclusion of Notre
Dame without the inclusion of its football program never made any sense. If you
are going to sell you soul to get some new members, you better make sure it is
a win/win situation, and I never saw the ‘win’ for the Big East in that move.
Rutgers geographically made sense, though it brought nothing
to the basketball table. It would have made far more sense to keep Temple in
the Big East for football, instead of unceremoniously kicking them out, and
then insist the rest of Temple join the Big East; they would have a been a nice
addition to the basketball league (though I realize Villanova would not have
been happy with that).
West Virginia is a natural rival of Pitt, and since Pitt was
in the Big East, bringing in WVU with a solid basketball and football program made
sense. Plus schools like Syracuse had
traditional rivalries with the Mountaineers.
But the league started to get bloated. Teams no longer had home-and-home games with
all the teams in the league. You start
to lose your identity that way. Boston
College left… that was a team that the Eastern schools all had a relationship
with, and now that was gone on both the gridiron and the hard court.
The Big East expanded westward, beyond the Ohio state line,
and grabbed schools like Louisville and Cincinnati to help with the football
league. Marquette and DePaul were picked
up to balance out the basketball. The
league identity was gone. It was no longer a small conference of tough battling
teams, but a mega conference. It was a
conference with some dominating basketball and tremendous depth, but no identity.
And of course the recent grab of Boise State, Memphis, San Diego State, etc.
was just a collection of every desperate program out there. Thankfully Syracuse would be no part of that.
It bothered me that Syracuse left the Big East, but it made
perfect sense. If they did not, they would now be were UConn is; a team with no
home. A great basketball program that
needs a place to put its football program. Syracuse made the right move, at the
right time.
Syracuse owed nothing to the Big East. It entered the league as a top regional
player, and in the first season of the Big East, which was a partial schedule,
the Orange were the #2 team in the country.
They entered the Big East as a top program, they were one of the reasons
the basketball league had credibility from the beginning. The Big East
obviously helped Syracuse go to the next level, as it did to every other team
in the league. But the benefit to SU was
mutual with the benefit to the league.
Syracuse was the only program in the league that remained a contender
throughout the history of the league; year in and year out, they were always in
the top half of the league. They were
not always the best team, but they were always a recognizable team. Georgetown, St. Johns and Villanova dropped
to some very forgettable and losing seasons.
UConn, Pitt. Providence and Seton Hall took advantage of being in the
Big East to build successful programs.
I had discussed with friends during the 90’s that I would have
loved to have seen the Big East add Navy, Army, Temple, and gone after Maryland
for the Big East. Those programs would
have added to the identity of the league. It may not have been the powerhouse
it became in basketball in the 2000s, but it would have had a regional and
national identity. Top to bottom talent
doesn’t really matter; how do you think the ACC has gotten by the past 8-9
years with only a few really good basketball programs? Regional identity and historical
perception.
Anyhow, good luck to Georgetown, Seton Hall, St. John’s,
Providence, Notre Dame, Marquette and DePaul as you try to return to a respectable
format. I really do wish you the best of
luck.