ESPN Men's Basketball

Originally Published: November 4, 2003

Slam dunk: Big East a big winner

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By Andy Katz
ESPN.com
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The Big East winds up the big winner once the on-going conference expansion saga ends. After all is said and done, the Big East -- not the ACC -- will be the premier conference in the country ... at least when it comes to men's basketball.

That's right, the Big East's gains easily outweigh its losses on the court. Once the Big East is able to add the five teams it wants -- Louisville, Cincinnati, Marquette, DePaul and South Florida -- from top to bottom, the Big East wins out. Hands down.

Sure, the ACC will still have Duke, North Carolina and Maryland. But its additions of Miami and Virginia Tech next season and Boston College by 2005-06, combined with the current conference members, simply won't hold up against a new, and improved, Big East of 2005.

Just look at last week's preseason coaches poll: seven top 25 teams will be in the Big East by the start of the 2005-06 season -- Connecticut, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Notre Dame, Marquette, Cincinnati and Louisville. The ACC has a respectable four top 25 teams, but all play in the current ACC (Duke, North Carolina, Wake Forest and Maryland).

Football dictated the ACC's decline in basketball. But the money generated by the BCS won't benefit its traditional basketball brethren.

Sure, when the Big Three of Duke, North Carolina and Maryland play each other, the games will still pull in higher television ratings than any Big East matchup. But the new Big East will have more quality matchups with the aforementioned seven teams going against each other, not to mention Providence, DePaul and even the teams currently struggling such as Villanova, Georgetown and St. John's. Add it all up and that's 11 traditional hoop powers that will eventually be back in the NCAAs -- not to mention names that still resonate a lot more in the sport than Virginia Tech, Miami and Clemson.

"We've been even with the ACC the last few years," said Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, referring to each conference having two national champions since 1999. "Now we're adding three teams in the top 20 and they're adding three teams in the bottom of the top 100. Do the math. The other team we're adding -- DePaul -- is on the way up.

"To me there is no question that we'll be significantly better than them in basketball," adds Boeheim, as he takes another jab at the departing Boston College, Virginia Tech and Miami -- although BC has reached the NCAA Tournament in two of the past three seasons and Miami has danced four times since '98.

"Our bottom level teams will be darn good. Sure there is a danger of beating each other up, but that's why we should play only 16 league games instead of 18. Anybody who knows basketball can see that in the next two years we'll have the best league in the country. Louisville. Marquette. Cincinnati. And look at the coaches (Rick Pitino, Tom Crean and Bob Huggins) we're bringing in, guys in the top 10-15 in the country."

The 16-team Big East will have a combined 39 Final Four appearances, nine national titles, 31 NCAA appearances from 1999-2003 and 311 all-time NCAA bids. And resurgent programs such as Pittsburgh and Notre Dame have been to a combined three Sweet 16s in the past two seasons.

Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun is just as outspoken as Boeheim. And other Big East coaches aren't shying away, either.

"It's not even close," Providence coach Tim Welsh said. "We lost Virginia Tech, Miami and BC ... where are they in the top 25? I don't even know if they're in the top 50. Look at a year-to-year basis and Cincinnati and Louisville are perennial top 20 teams. Now Marquette will be there. The numbers speak for themselves."

The consensus among the Big East is that the league could command seven to eight NCAA Tournament bids on an annual basis starting in 2006 tournament.

"You're going to have adjust your non-conference schedule, that's for sure," Welsh said of the even tougher in-league schedule. One scenario has the Big East playing 18 conference games, one each against every opponent, while playing three teams twice.

"We've gone a long way toward helping football," said Boeheim. "It's not going to be as good, but it will be solidified. But we'll be great in basketball. That's what we needed to do. We let the other conferences know, so they could get their stuff in order. And they did."

Well, Conference USA added some teams, but didn't come close to recouping its losses the way the Big East has done. While the Big East goes to the best in show -- with the Big 12, ACC, SEC, Big Ten and Pac-10 jockeying for second through sixth each season -- Conference USA slides to the back of the line behind the Atlantic 10, Mountain West and possibly the WAC, Missouri Valley, WCC, MAC and Horizon League.

The conference immediately announced Tuesday the five schools that will replace those leaving for the Big East. Rice, SMUt and Tulsa of the WAC, and Marshall and Central Florida of the MAC, will join Conference USA beginning in 2005.

Memphis athletic director R.C. Johnson won't dispute that Conference USA could be considered a mid-major by 2005, akin to the Big West when UNLV was king in the '80s and early '90s. The good news for Memphis is the Tigers can become UNLV-like on the national level while ruling an otherwise weak league. Tulsa is still a threat, but is facing a critical time, needing to maintain its recent run of excellence if it's going to hang with Memphis.

The rest of C-USA is all a few steps behind. How far? On this year's ESPN programming schedule, every Conference USA game involves Louisville, Cincinnati, Marquette or Memphis. Starting in 2005, Memphis is the only one left.

"We'll just change our schedule like we did at UMass and schedule national games," said Memphis coach John Calipari. Johnson said Memphis already has a home-and-home series set with Cincinnati and is trying to do the same with Louisville beginning in 2005-06.

"When this new league starts, we'll be in the Preseason NIT (in 2005) and then in Maui (2006), so we'll play national games," Calipari adds. "UMass got most of the TV games when we were in the A-10 with Temple right behind us. The new conference will help our football team and I'm fine with that. It's not going to be as strong as Big East basketball, but I wouldn't want to be a middle-of-the-road Big East team in that league."

Still, there's no denying that losing the marquee programs will hurt C-USA recruiting. But programs like Southern Miss, which could wind up welcoming new teams nearby in TCU, SMU and Rice, see some positives to a more of regional conference.

"It's better for us financially," Southern Miss coach James Green said. "We're not the type of program that has that same tradition. It has been difficult to compete against those people. We'll have more of a balanced league. The odds are against teams like us at this point."

And, like so many other programs caught on this carousel, the new C-USA will bring a "crucial phase for Southern Miss basketball," Green said. The same can be said for UAB, East Carolina and Houston, who need to step up to prevent C-USA from becoming a one-bid league.

"The next two or three years will be critical," he said. "We've got to be in the top three or four in the league when this new one takes off, because if we're not, it will be difficult to get up there. The biggest thing is for us to make a commitment to be one of the best teams in the league."

TCU is a possible swing school for C-USA. Like Boston College, TCU could say it's staying, but then take an offer to join the Mountain West. If that occurs, the league will suffer a major blow in both football and basketball.

If the Mountain West doesn't add TCU, it will look to recruit Boise State from the WAC. If the WAC loses Boise State, it could pick North Texas or Louisiana-Lafayette (from the Sun Belt) or Idaho (from the Big West). If it loses Louisiana Tech to Conference USA, the WAC will definitely choose the Vandals over North Texas or UL-Lafayette and get out of the Central time zone.

When the dust settles, the WAC ends up a winner with the addition of Utah State and New Mexico State. Those two programs have consistently been better than SMU and Rice the past two decades. The trade puts the WAC and C-USA on equal footing overall.

The biggest slam dunk, however, belongs to the new Big East.

"It has to be the best basketball conference in the country -- for men and women," Notre Dame athletic director Kevin White said. "It will be very, very, very strong."

Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.