BC also admits they blackballed UCONN.
Also gets into current instability with Big East.
Read the whole Boston Globe story. It's pretty interesting:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2011/ ... /story.xml
According to sources in the Big East and ACC, the idea is to reestablish the ACC as the preeminent conference in college basketball and was a predatory strike at the Big East, which, while struggling to improve its BCS rankings in football, had established itself as the runaway leader in basketball.
The ACC just signed a new deal with ESPN that will increase the revenue for each school to approximately $13 million. With the addition of Pittsburgh and Syracuse, said DeFilippo, another significant increase will come.
“We always keep our television partners close to us,’’ he said. “You don’t get extra money for basketball. It’s 85 percent football money. TV - ESPN - is the one who told us what to do. This was football; it had nothing to do with basketball.’’
While Syracuse presented no problem, UConn did - to BC, which was still fuming over what it perceived to be vitriolic comments made when BC was finally invited to join the ACC and started competing in 2005. UConn and Pittsburgh filed a lawsuit against BC, and Calhoun made comments about never playing BC again.
DeFilippo does not deny that BC opposed the inclusion of UConn.
“We didn’t want them in,’’ he said. “It was a matter of turf. We wanted to be the New England team.’’
Without Syracuse and Pittsburgh, Big East basketball is ready to implode; there is growing sentiment for the seven non-football Catholic schools to break away with Notre Dame and form a solid eight- or 10-team Catholic league.
If that happens, the ACC will be the leader in college basketball not only on the Atlantic Coast but nationally.
For BC, it could also mean a crippling blow to UConn, which could be reduced to Conference USA-type status unless it finds a new home.
