I suppose I should preface this by
reminding people that Rutgers didn't add much to the Big East's basketball
profile. Even after Greg Schiano did
perhaps the most thorough building (not re-building because they were never
good in recent and long memory) in the country for their football program and
even as C.Vivan Stringer re-vitalized the women's hoops program, men's
basketball through a succession of
coaches could never crack the upper echelon of the basketball conference.
Almost in spite of this their
departure to the Big-10 is another in a long list of times where the basketball
only powers that founded and drove the league's early success must look at the
college sports world through a prism where football drives the bus. In the late
70's when Dave Gavitt conceived and put together the league, and in doing so
beat Joe Paterno, who was the primary mover and shaker in eastern football as
Gavitt had been in basketball, to the punch in forming a powerful league in his
sport. He had an advantage because most schools in the late 70's the football
programs that joined the Big East basketball league were at least content as
independents even as they joined a conference for their basketball and
non-revenue producing sports. Boston College and Syracuse joined the league at
its inception and Pittsburgh joined a year later knowing that they would for
the foreseeable future remain football independents and the result was the best
basketball league in the country not named the NBA. It became a basketball
league that helped its member schools expand their reach will beyond their
geographical boarders not only with respect to basketball recruiting but with
respect to admissions. St. John's for
example has been transformed from a "commuter school" into one that
now houses a significant portion of its students. Make no mistake the Big East's reach into
homes via television has a great deal to do with that.
The future that was foreseeable
for administrators in the 80's and even the 90's is now the distant past. Football's reach, while always bigger than
basketball's has now seemingly overwhelmed it. It's football that has provided
the springboard for both the SEC the Big
10 and the Pac-12 to form their own television networks and not rely on outside
networks like ESPN, and Fox to produce
games for television.
The
biggest slice of the basketball money pie remains the NCAA tournament which the
NCAA itself and not the conferences control. And the Big East, the only one of
the FBS conferences that includes non-football playing schools has been left
behind both by conferences that have always had football not basketball as
their flagship sport and by conferences like the ACC which was also founded as
a hoops conference even though all the schools played major college
football The league has scrambled
rudderlessly to maintain a football presence with a westward and southern
expansion that includes mediocre football programs like UCF and South Florida a
rebuilding program in both football and basketball (SMU) and a westward
expansion with Boise State and San Diego State.
The net result seems to be that the schism between football and
basketball schools will continue as evidenced by recent reports that both SDSU
and Boise have made noises about returning to the Mountain West
Conference. The fact that Rutgers left
after many had thought the winds of conference re-alignment had settled could
mean that other schools, like established members Cincinnati and Louisville or
new member Temple even could be looking for fiscally greener pastures for their
football teams, or at least hold the threat of leaving over the basketball
stalwarts. It's worth noting here that in the recent past the Big East provided
fertile ground for schools like Miami
Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh to build basketball programs after football
powers had long been established. In the
case of those two schools loyalty proved to be a nice but antiquated notion as
they bolted along with founding member Boston College for the ACC thanks to the
exponential growth and lore of football money
With all this in mind the question
must be asked: Is it really a good idea for the traditional Big East
non-football schools to remain part of a league with football school? What may
have been worth maintaining with geographical rivals like Syracuse may be less
worth while playing SMU and South Florida. And if that's the case what should
those schools do next.
It has been suggested that those
schools aggressively pursue new members and form what is essentially an
expanded version of the old league which got into TV markets and produced such
good basketball that the nation had to take notice.
While there's no question that
there are enough schools that compete in the basketball arms race of facilities
and coaching to form such a league one wonders whether the schools in the Big
East are in position to do so. While they seemingly sit idly by while the
football mess sorts itself out, the stronger basketball first leagues have
moved to expand their footprints. The Atlantic 10 with the additions of Butler
and VCU is now arguably the strongest non FBS basketball league in the country
and they have gotten there by expanding
their footprint southward with VCU and westward with Butler. If the Big East's
catholic non-basketball membership thinks they can count on A-10 brethren like
St. Joe's and Xavier to join a new league they may be in for a surprise. Those schools will not be influenced by faith
based connections but by the very secular promise of more money from improved
television possibilities and (to a lesser extent) from improved attendance by
geography based rivalries (St. Joe's-Nova or Marquette-Xavier to name just two)
There's a very real possibility that the
time to form such a league is past and that the A-10's moves have closed the
door on that possibility and if that is indeed what's happened the traditional
Big East schools may find it impossible to keep the place they've earned
through history as major players in college basketball. Last night's win by
Georgetown against UCLA in Brooklyn was another in an endless list of examples
where a proverbial "small Catholic School" has taken the fight to the
one of college sports' big boys and won on the court. The battle those schools
face now is one that will be waged across negotiating tables. They will need to
strengthen old ties even as they forge new ones to stay financially competitive
at the highest levels of basketball. I hope it's a fight those schools are willing
and able to wage.
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