ESPN: Big East at a crossroads in Year 2

[DudeAnon]

CBS had a similar type of article last week and not much was said about it.

And pretty much one of the biggest quotes in the article was from JT3 himself.
"For the last 20 years we could say we were the best basketball conference in the country,'' said Georgetown coach John Thompson III. "Now we can say we are arguably the best basketball conference in the country. We say we're still pretty good but people are looking at that dip and saying, why?''

or what Ackerman said herself...
"We were built to be a basketball powerhouse and our intention is to remain as one.''

Those are 2 pretty telling quotes from key people in the conference. The fact that's getting said is pretty telling....

You are an idiot, you bitch and moan about people being overly optimistic, then 2 of the head honchos of the conference take a more balanced assessment and you are doom and gloom. Take your anti-depressant and shut up.

[NJRedman]

CBS had a similar type of article last week and not much was said about it.

And pretty much one of the biggest quotes in the article was from JT3 himself.
"For the last 20 years we could say we were the best basketball conference in the country,'' said Georgetown coach John Thompson III. "Now we can say we are arguably the best basketball conference in the country. We say we're still pretty good but people are looking at that dip and saying, why?''

or what Ackerman said herself...
"We were built to be a basketball powerhouse and our intention is to remain as one.''

Those are 2 pretty telling quotes from key people in the conference. The fact that's getting said is pretty telling....

You are an idiot, you bitch and moan about people being overly optimistic, then 2 of the head honchos of the conference take a more balanced assessment and you are doom and gloom. Take your anti-depressant and shut up.

Hallelujah!!!

[robinreed]

At least Jeff put some meat on the bone.
http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketba ... -media-day

This is also a very good article from ESPN about the BE and also well worth reading. One thing that I find peculiar is when I first read this article earlier today Dana was not listed as the author. I just reread it and she has suddenly become the author. Odd that she would write 2 articles basically about the same event on the same day.

[Bill Marsh]

CBS had a similar type of article last week and not much was said about it.

And pretty much one of the biggest quotes in the article was from JT3 himself.
"For the last 20 years we could say we were the best basketball conference in the country,'' said Georgetown coach John Thompson III. "Now we can say we are arguably the best basketball conference in the country. We say we're still pretty good but people are looking at that dip and saying, why?''

or what Ackerman said herself...
"We were built to be a basketball powerhouse and our intention is to remain as one.''

Those are 2 pretty telling quotes from key people in the conference. The fact that's getting said is pretty telling....

Telling . . . ?

What's it telling you, Stever?

[Bill Marsh]

While we're here, I think it's fair to say that the ACC disappointed in the tournament last year too. Six teams in the tournament, only four made it to the round of 32, and only two made it to the sweet 16. No Elite Eight or Final Four teams.

Don't forget that they were also given favorable seeds and brackets.

They also like to say that Nova lost to UConn in the round of 32, but fail to mention that UConn went on to win the whole damn thing. It's not like they lost to Mercer!

I'm sure you know this and that it's why you made the Mercer reference, but just to show that I'm paying attention . . .

It was Duke who lost in the first round to Meercer.

While I'm at it, I'll point out that Syracuse and NC state lost to 2 of our A10 friends - Dayton and St Louis.

[Bill Marsh]

I have read this article twice. I can find nothing therein which is inaccurate, incorrect, slanderous or contrary to fact. We had a decent but not exceptional first year. We are working to improve our league. Our TV numbers were disappointing. There are good reasons for these things but they are what they are. As a XU grad and fan I am very glad to be a member of the Big East but let us not be so foolish as to suggest we are what we want to be currently. Some here suggest the article is a hack job. I would suggest it is a reasonable evaluation of our first year containing some obvious truths concerning what we must do in future.

I find it difficult to believe anyone could find this article offensive. ESPN has it's faults as does CBS, NBC and FOX but we did well in our contract financially and now we must improve our viewership numbers. That and getting teams into the top 25 at the end of the season should be our goals.

Perhaps the ESPN writers could write only warm and fuzzy articles about how wonderful we and all the other conferences are and stress that we are equal before the eyes of God but I doubt it would sell or that anyone would read it. As Charlie Brown oft said "Good Grief".

No, it's more about the narrative that they have been trying to write about our league, that we aren't the "real" Big East. Do they mention how the 7 newer members of the ACC (all from the Big East) now make the ACc the "new" ACC? They mention Marquette and DePaul, but they've been in the Big East as long as Miami, VT and BC have been in the ACC.

"I don't know why people have to call us the new Big East or the relaunched Big East,'' Providence coach Ed Cooley said. "We're the Big East.''

Except it's not. Butler, Xavier, Creighton, DePaul and Marquette aren't going to win any Big East word association quizzes.

How is this anything but a shot at the league? We are the Big East, who is she to tell 5 founding members we aren't the true Big East since we've been here for over 30 years!

Also they changed it from Dana to Jeff Borzello as the author of this story.

I agree with you.

A key and hopefully not so abstract thought here: doesn't every league that exists, regardless of how new or traditional they might be, have to perform well in order to remain relevant, respected, radar-worthy - whatever?

Not to be a contrarian, but I disagree with your take.

Her point was with regard to Big East identity. She points out that the league's identity in the past couple of decades had been carried by the likes of UConn, Syracuse, Louisville, etc. and that the current conference members who are readily associated with "The Big East" in the public mind haven't been strong for a long time with the exceptions of Villanova and Georgetown - and even they have had noticeable missteps in the past 5 years. I think that her point is that for the casual fan to say, "The Big East is back" or "This new version of the Big East is as good as the old one," it would help to have the most readily recognizable conference members carry the banner forward for the rest to follow.

That's her opinion and she's entitled to it. It's a fair point. In fact, a number of fans posted here last spring that they were glad to see one of the traditional Big East schools win the conference tournament. She's making that same point. Obviously anyone can disagree with her and it's equally fair to take the other side of the argument.

As for your point that every league has to perform to remain relevant, that's obviously true. But this wasn't an article about every league. She was covering Big East media day. She's contrasting the new with the old, the aspirations to be the best as stated by the commissioner and some coaches but not being that with the old which was the best. She's saying what many are saying , which is that as good as this league is, it's not the old Big East despite the name. That's a natural thing to say when standing in the middle of Big East media day, and not something that a commentator would say about any other league because it's not carrying the banner of a legacy of past triumphs. Simply put, a lot's been lost from The Big East and the challenge is for this new group to match the accomplishments of those who are gone.

[Bill Marsh]

At least Jeff put some meat on the bone.
http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketba ... -media-day

Thanks. That was a very good read.

[Bill Marsh]

While we're here, I think it's fair to say that the ACC disappointed in the tournament last year too. Six teams in the tournament, only four made it to the round of 32, and only two made it to the sweet 16. No Elite Eight or Final Four teams.

Actually, the ACC only had 1 team in the Sweet 16, Virginia.

This astounding fact still holds:
Since 2004, no team has made the Elite-8 coming out of the ACC, except for Duke and UNC.
When you think of the press the ACC gets, that's amazing.

Oops. You're right.
If I remember correctly, from 1997 to 2003 and 2005 to 2011, only Duke and UNC won the ACC Tournament. Talk about competition.

That kind of ACC bashing only works if you ignore the fact that Maryland went to the Final Four in 2001-02 and won the national championship in 2002. And if you ignore the fact that Georgia Tech was national runner up in 2004. No depth? Maryland is gone but they've been replaced with Louisville and Syracuse to make that conference even stronger. They are clearly the premier basketball conference in the country.

North Carolina and Duke have been the 2 constants in that conference, but the ACC has always had someone else step up to provide competition to those 2. Before Maryland and Georgia Tech, there were Georgia Tech and Wake Forest in the '90's, NC State and Virginia in the '80's, NC State and Maryland in the '70's, and Wake Forest in the '60's.

[muskienick]

Dana took some liberties when she wrote this article. She wrote "Syracuse, UConn, Louisville and others..." carried "...the league's banner." But earlier in the same article she gave no Big East name recognition (i.e. "banner carrying") to Marquette and DePaul as if they were more "johnny come lately" than Louisville who entered the Big East in the same year as DePaul and Marquette. I agree that DePaul served almost annually as one of the lower level Big East programs. But Marquette was one of the more successful programs during their 8 years of sharing membership in the Big East with Louisville. And if my research is not too far off, Marquette made the NCAA 7 consecutive years as a member of the Big East and made the Sweet Sixteen three consecutive years (2011, 2012, 2013). During the same time span, Louisville made the NCAA the same number of times and made the Sweet Sixteen the same number of times also. The Cards did do better at Elite 8's and Final 4's and had one National Championship once during that time also and UConn and Syracuse were usually near the top of the pack as well. Who were "the others" about whom Dana speaks as wresting the banner away from Marquette due to their supposedly consistent better performances year after year?

I believe Marquette basketball was far more successful than most other teams who were members of the Hybrid Big East from 2005-2006 through 2012-2013.

[Bill Marsh]

Dana took some liberties when she wrote this article. She wrote "Syracuse, UConn, Louisville and others..." carried "...the league's banner." But earlier in the same article she gave no Big East name recognition (i.e. "banner carrying") to Marquette and DePaul as if they were more "johnny come lately" than Louisville who entered the Big East in the same year as DePaul and Marquette. I agree that DePaul served almost annually as one of the lower level Big East programs. But Marquette was one of the more successful programs during their 8 years of sharing membership in the Big East with Louisville. And if my research is not too far off, Marquette made the NCAA 7 consecutive years as a member of the Big East and made the Sweet Sixteen three consecutive years (2011, 2012, 2013). During the same time span, Louisville made the NCAA the same number of times and made the Sweet Sixteen the same number of times also. The Cards did do better at Elite 8's and Final 4's and had one National Championship once during that time also and UConn and Syracuse were usually near the top of the pack as well. Who were "the others" about whom Dana speaks as wresting the banner away from Marquette due to their supposedly consistent better performances year after year?

I believe Marquette basketball was far more successful than most other teams who were members of the Hybrid Big East from 2005-2006 through 2012-2013.

By "carrying the banner", I think she's saying that certain teams gave the conference its identity Obviously as long time Big East members, UConn (5 FF, 4 NC) and Syracuse (4 FF, 1 NC) did that big time. Louisville as a 2 time NC already had a high profile coming into the conference, so it was easy for them to step in with a high profile and an immediate high name recognition factor. After joining the conference, they then won 3 conference championships and were obviously one of the schools carrying the conference banner as the league's best team. They took that banner to 4 Elite 8's, 2 Final 4's, and a NC. So we would agree on the Big 3.

But there was more. West Virginia only went to 2 Elite 8's, but they transcended those accomplishments. "Pittsnogle" became a household word during their Elite 8 run in 2005 while Huggins gave them instant credibility when he took over as coach and validated that by taking them to a Final Four. Pitt was always a disappointment in the NCAA tournament but they were always in the tournament (11 bids 2002-13), while 5 conference championships since 2002 and great success during the regular season gave them high visibility and made them recognizable as one of the conference's premier programs. Notre Dame is Notre Dame and doesn't have to do much to gain attention. With them, perception becomes reality. Their 6 NCAA tournament appearances in the conference's last decade were enough to keep them in the public eye.

That's 6 of the 8 football programs that were highly visible, were considered to be premier programs, and were who people thought of when they thought "Big East". All of those schools had classic battles in the BE tournament - the UConn-SU 6 OT game, 3 straight dog fights between UConn and Pitt in the BE tournament, Louisville's runs through the tournament.

No one is counting up appearances and nuancing the number of Elite 8's the way you are. What she's saying, I think, is that when the defections came and the league split, the C7 lost all of that. To the extent that the conference's identity rested so much with those schools in the past decade or two, a lot was lost. There's really no denying that.As she says in the article, that's the challenge that now faces the conference when it looks at what lies ahead, which is to recapture that identity and the magic in the mind of the public that went with being "Big East".