![]() The Garden stayed packed late into the night.Īnd it doesn’t stop after the tournament final on Saturday night between Marquette and Xavier. UConn didn’t tip off until three hours later, but that didn’t stop the team’s fans from showing up early to drink overpriced beers and groan at Marquette’s missed buzzer-beater at the end of regulation. John’s and Marquette drew a raucous crowd on a Thursday. “The restructuring is just magnificent,” he remarked during a DePaul-Seton Hall matchup that ended up going right down to the buzzer.Ī noon ET quarterfinal between St. Both have since been fired.īut the men’s Big East Tournament is still one of the best products in all sports, played in front of the most knowledgeable fans at the Mecca of Basketball.ĭuring the first round on Wednesday, legendary Fox Sports announcer Bill Raftery marveled at the quality of play. In fact, the schools hired the two former players to coach, seemingly to bring back the good old days. It doesn’t boast Georgetown’s Patrick Ewing and St. The “new” iteration doesn’t have the big men or the ultra-physical style of play that characterized it in the past. The Big East looks different than it did in the “glory days” of the 1980s. Building A ‘Power 6’ The Creighton Bluejays beat the Villanova Wildcats in the 2023 Big East Quarterfinal. “It was exhausting.”īut the conference rode the coattails of its basketball powerhouses - and at this point, it doesn’t appear to miss its football league at all. The new Big East had to re-file with the IRS.Īckerman said that she was hiring employees every week just to keep the conference afloat. The AAC even took the Big East nonprofit entity and renamed it. The AAC had “all the infrastructure.” The new Big East had no office, website, email address, bank accounts, or benefits plans. “We were essentially a startup,” Ackerman said of her early days. The conference began official operations on July 1 of that year. Credit: Big EastĪ decade ago, the Big East decided to lean into basketball, not because it was a smart business decision - they didn’t have a choice. We’re basketball schools.” A Startup Conference Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman. “We don’t have sort of ‘flight risks,’ we don’t have the distractions, we don’t have the expenses that go into supporting football,” Ackerman told Front Office Sports in between Big East Tournament games on Thursday. “What we’ve got now suits us. In 2023, big-time college football reigns supreme - but the Big East is better off without it. During the latest vicious round of realignment, the Big East remained unscathed - and could even add new members. ![]() The conference is slated to send at least five teams to men’s March Madness, and four to the women’s - including perennial championship contender UConn, which Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman lured back to the conference in 2019. They decided to try to rebuild a new Big East that eschewed the most lucrative sport in the NCAA.Ī decade later, the Big East is hosting its 41st annual men’s tournament at Madison Square Garden to sellout crowds. But the “Catholic 7” basketball-centric schools like Georgetown and Villanova refused to give up.
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