What if the Big East had stayed together?
Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2018 10:42 pmKind of depressing to think about this in retrospect, but man, what a basketball conference we could’ve had (without much drop off in football).
The “Catholic 7” that split away at the end of the old Big East were DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, St Johns, Seton Hall, and Villanova. What if we’d kept them in a 15-team league (like the ACC is now) with nine football members: Navy (football only), Temple, UConn, USF, UCF, Memphis, Cincinnati, Houston, and SMU. ECU, Tulane, and Tulsa would’ve been the odd men out and stayed in C-USA.
Almost no drop off in football competition (although there’d be no AAC champ game, but with round-robin scheduling, not a big deal) and a massive upgrade in the hoops profile with a fat TV contract and annual conference tourney at MSG.
Sorry for the depressing post.
The “Catholic 7” that split away at the end of the old Big East were DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, St Johns, Seton Hall, and Villanova. What if we’d kept them in a 15-team league (like the ACC is now) with nine football members: Navy (football only), Temple, UConn, USF, UCF, Memphis, Cincinnati, Houston, and SMU. ECU, Tulane, and Tulsa would’ve been the odd men out and stayed in C-USA.
Almost no drop off in football competition (although there’d be no AAC champ game, but with round-robin scheduling, not a big deal) and a massive upgrade in the hoops profile with a fat TV contract and annual conference tourney at MSG.
Sorry for the depressing post.