So it sounds like the Catholic private schools which were at the core of the Big East from the beginning – Georgetown, Providence, St John’s, Villanova, Seton Hall and the like – have finally decided enough is enough. After the bloodbath of conference realignment, they seem to be on the verge of withdrawing from the Big East and taking an automatic bid with them, with an eye toward setting up shop as a mostly Northern, mostly urban group of basketball-first athletic programs. You know…like the Big East.
The Big East was a name-brand to reckon with. Within a few years of its founding, the conference placed three teams in the 1985 Final Four. But at some point, the league decided it needed a football presence, and tried to claim instant credibility by adding Miami – a year or so too late. Indeed, the Miami team that was ignominiously pantsed by Alabama in the Sugar Bowl was technically the Big East champion. And from there, the Big East executed a bit of a shuffle with the Atlantic 10 and the dissolving Metro conference, trying to piece together enough teams to form a viable football league. Sometimes they actually added schools that gave credibility to the core basketball mission – lumping in Louisville did them no harm at all – and they still managed to get good basketball expansion with the likes of Marquette and DePaul. Plus Notre Dame, for non-football only, proved a coup just as Mike Brey and his shmedium turtleneck were making the Irish a power again.
But.
For every Louisville, there was a South Florida. Then the defections started, with Virginia Tech, Miami and Boston College fleeing to the ACC. Then Syracuse and Pittsburgh jumped ship, and all of a sudden, the BIg East was flinging itself at the likes of Boise State and San Diego State and trying to beg back Temple and giving long looks at East Carolina, all in a desperate attempt to keep the football numbers at a point where they could exist as a football league – let alone piece together 12 for a possible title game. But even at its best, the Big East was barely a BCS-caliber conference, and spent most of its years taking a slot from more deserving teams. At this stage, it is beyond risible to try to sell the 2014 Big East as any sort of major conference.
And now, the Catholic schools have said enough. Or are about to, apparently. Enough of trying to add teams in the Pacific time zone for the sake of football. Enough of yanking around the membership for the sake of football. Enough of realigning and diluting the original mission and chasing the almighty BCS dollar for the sake of football. The Catholic schools want to go back to what they originally joined the Big East for: a solid basketball league with lots of academic respectability, without the sordid distractions caused by the pursuit of big-time college football.
At long last, somebody has said enough is enough. Bless you boys.