Big East Conference Attempts To Return To Glory

By Bobby Reagan | Feb 7, 2015

Close your eyes and think of the Big East. Do you still have images of Georgetown’s dominance? Conference tournament games at Madison Square Garden? Favorites like UConn, Syracuse and Louisville playing in the Final Four? Maybe it’s memories of Patrick Ewing, Rollie Massimino, John Thompson, Jim Boeheim, Carmelo Anthony, Jim Calhoun and Kemba Walker?

Now open your eyes. That’s all gone. What you see is a reality of a once proud and dominant conference that was falling near mid-major territory. However, thanks to a crazy college basketball season, the Big East is back in mentions with the other power conferences. But how long can it last?

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Sure, the Big East still plays its conference tournament at Madison Square Garden. But, for how long? With conference realignment, the ACC is now the premier basketball conference of America and has its eyes on MSG when the Big East’s lease ends later this decade. After all, Syracuse is an ACC member now.

The Big Ten, yes the Big Ten that’s centered around schools in the Midwest already has a deal in place to play their conference tournament at MSG in a couple years.

The Big East got a great deal from Fox Sports 1. A 12-year deal to broadcast 108 Big East games throughout the year. That’s a massive TV deal for a conference that is mainly comprised of small, northeastern Catholic schools and smaller private schools that play in midlevel TV markets in the Midwest. They even got Raftery!

However, it’s still an afterthought when it comes to the college basketball market and will require creative marketing moving forward.

A year ago the Big East was arguably a worst conference than the Atlantic-10? Two years ago the thought of the Big East and Atlantic-10 being on the same playing field was beyond ludicrous. But, thanks to the emergence of senior-laden teams this is no longer a debate.

This was the only way for the Big East to stay alive. In 2009, the Big East had three No. 1 seeds and had four teams advance to the Elite 8. That’s not going to happen again anytime soon, but the Big East is currently the No. 2 conference according to RPI rankings.

On top of that the latest Bracketology has seven teams from the Big East getting into the NCAA tournament. No other conference has more than six, so the conference is taking steps in the right direction.

The rest of this year is pivotal for the Big East. There’s no reason to be surprised if Villanova is favored in every game on their schedule until the NCAA Tournament. They need to stay in the top 15 all year and make a deep tournament run.

In addition, a combination of teams needs to make a run into the Top 25 and stay there. Georgetown, Butler, Seton Hall, St. John’s and Providence can’t all rotate a week in the bottom portion of the Top 25. More importantly they need to make NCAA runs of their own.

If the opposite happens, consider this an early obituary for the once proud Big East. Having one team ranked and hoping for a few bubble teams to hear their name on Selection Sunday is for the mid-majors.

Next: College Basketball Rankings: Top 25 Teams In America

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