With Louisville departing the Big East Conference for the ACC, this is another blow for fans of Big East basketball. Under Rick Pitino, the Cardinals were an exciting team to watch and follow. They’ve been to 2 Final Fours and were always a contender for a league title. This year, they started the season out as the No. 2 team in the country. Now they are gone to the ACC to join Pittsburgh, Notre Dame and Syracuse. Coupled with the loss of Rutgers, The Big East lost two members in a matter of days.
Losing Louisville cannot be understated for the Big East. It is fourth loss of a dominant basketball power to the ACC. Losing Rutgers hurt as well, as Mike Rice looks have the Scarlet Knights on the way up. Their replacements outside of Temple & Memphis are sub par basketball programs. Houston? They haven’t been relevant since the days of Phi Slamma Jama with Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon. Central Florida and SMU are afterthoughts in their markets in terms of college basketball. SMU brought in Larry Brown to coach, but who knows how long he’ll be around. Now with Tulane joining the Big East to help replace Rutgers and Louisville, The Big East is becoming the Big Least. Big Monday games will now consist of Georgetown and SMU instead of Louisville and Syracuse.
It’s becoming downright embarrassing for the current non-football members of the Big East to let the Big East Conference let these non BCS football programs come into the Big East and water down the quality of the basketball conference. The Big East was founded as a basketball conference, and is now chasing the dollars that is associated with TV money from college football. The Big East will never be a BCS level football conference. Fans of Villanova, Georgetown, St John’s and Providence are all disgusted with the future of the Big East.
There comes a point where the non-football members have to break off and form a basketball Conference. Similar to the WCC, it would have non-football members only. Take the seven non-football members (St. John’s, Villanova, Georgetown, Providence, Seton Hall, Marquette, & Depaul) and throw in three to five other non-football schools such as Xavier, Dayton, Butler, VCU, & St. Louis and it would rival any BCS conference in terms of basketball quality. This may be the only hope to save what’s left of Big East basketball. Enjoy this season while you can because after this, the Big East Basketball will never be the same.
Photo Credits: Deadspin
