Welcome to The Holy Land of Hoops

Figured we could start a new thread idea as we kick off 2017.
This will be updated regularly.

The Big East has always prided itself in innovation and forward thinking.
Recent exceptional ideas have included:

- Freshman foundation seminars in NYC.
- NYE Marathon which for 2017 has been replaced with the great idea of an MLK Day Marathon.

I would really be interested in compiling some ideas that all of you might have, which could be introduced into our conference. Just brainstorm... no idea is off the table because even ideas that would be considered crazy could spark some other thoughts.

I'll toss a couple of crazy ones out there to start things off, and we can number them...

1. Dunk contest at the Big East tourney.
.
2. 3-point contest at the Big East tourney.
.
3. Rookie showcase at the Big East tourney.

4. Schedule some games, either OOC or in Big East play, abroad... pick 5 different locations for each game in each country... say in Ireland, the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Portugal...

5. On either Opening Night, or during the MLK Marathon, either wear throwback historic uniforms and/or badass Johnny Unitas style black high-top sneakers.

6. Have Seton Hall go back to their older pirate head logo.

7. Have DePaul to go back to their old logo of the demon sitting on the basket taking a dump.

8. Alumni game or Old Timers game at Big East tourney.

9. Big East sponsorship of town youth leagues in each of our cities/ states... not AAU... town leagues where we could donate uniforms and equipment.

10. Try to make a Pac-12/ Big East Challenge work.

Additional ideas from HLOH members:

Golden Warrior:

11. Schedule Alliance With Gonzaga and St Mary’s::

I'd like to see a scheduling alliance (not conference membership) with Gonzaga and St. Mary's.

12. Big East Shootout:

I'd also like a preseason old Big East shootout matchups with Villanova, Georgetown, St. Johns, Seton Hall, Providence, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, West Virginia, UConn and Boston College at Madison Square Garden. You could easily group the current Big East teams, ACC teams and UConn/WVU separately so that you don't get any conference teams playing each other.

13. Schedule More Games With Notre Dame:

I'd also love more games with Notre Dame, although such an agreement wouldn't provide much benefit nor incentive for them.

gtmoblue:

14. Overseas Summer Trips:

...a league coordinated series of summer trips... vice everyone attempting to schedule their own, as is currently done.

Example: A league sponsored summer series on different continents: 2017 Colombia/Venezuela, 2018 Nigeria, 2019 France/Spain, 2020 Argentina/Brazil, 2021 Croatia/Serbia/Lithuania, 2022 China, 2023 Australia, etc. I used the countries which made the 2016 Olympics (and Colombia)- Hotbeds of Int'l. Hoops.

The order of these trips could be flexible. You would only have 1-3 teams participating each year (depending on the teams' last overseas trip and NCAA rules), but scheduling done by the BE office and FIBA on the slate of games and locations. Goodwill trips-no fighting allowed.

Teams go on overseas trips once every 4 years. So on any given season/year the BE would have at least 1 team, as many as 2 or 3 teams eligible to take an overseas summer trip. (Not the top 3 teams in the conference-as you may have taken the above statement to read:)

If the BE Conf. HQ coordinated summer junkets with FIBA, such trips as listed in my original post would be feasible, for all the eligible teams in a given year. As such, any BE team participating would play foreign teams in the given country/countries on their tour - just like they do now on summer trips. BE Conf coordination would take the guesswork out of the scenario, as folks would now know where they would be going in advance. By focusing on countries with Olympic participation, the guesswork and concerns regarding opponent quality "level of play" would be substantially reduced.

NJRedman:

15. Tri-State Big 5:

A tri-state Big 5. Rutgers, SJU, SH, Cuse and UConn all play each other each year. Best record gets crowned the champ.

Xer4ever:

16. Televise Signing Day For The Big East:

National Signing Day at MSG covered by Fox. Including detailed profiles and film on every Big East recruit.

Xudash:

17. Branding And Strategic Partnerships:

[received a package from Xavier outlining some priorities and goals] ...the Big East leadership has established 6 "overarching categories to establish the most important priorities for the conference members."

Of particular interest to anyone here is the category having to do with Branding and Strategic Partnerships. There is a clear focus on building and strengthening the ties to Fox and MSG, and this particular "pillar" goes beyond to convey a desire to build attendance at all the conference's tournaments - not just the hoops tournament at MSG.

The other categories are solid, ranging from academic collaborations, business model and resources (i.e. probably a focus on changing media economics, etc.) to student-athlete development (e.g. the excellent program they put together for the freshmen in NYC, as one example).

easypaddy:

18. Coaches Charity Game:

Split the 10 league coaches into two 5 person teams and play a charity basketball game.

billyjack:

19. Regular Saturday Big East Marathons:

Make every Saturday a Big East Marathon day. Schedule our games at 12, 2, 4, 6 and 8pm. May want to avoid NFL games I guess, but for me give me wall to wall BE hoops.

marquette:

20. Senior Send-Off Weekend:

As a complement to the Freshmen Fundamentals maybe a Senior Send Off weekend. Maybe have old players who went on to the NBA, overseas, or into business to help them with the transition to life after college. You could end it off with the aforementioned coaches/alumni game.

billyjack:

21. Red On Roundball, Big East Style:

We could have Big East coaches provide segments based on the old popular "Red On Roundball" (short segments from the 70's during NBA telecasts)... basketball drills and strategies and fundamentals. Either show at halftime, or during timeouts, or on "Inside the Big East" episodes.
.
22. Fans Join The Broadcast Booth:

- during TV broadcasts, add a fan from each school to sit behind the microphone, to announce the play-by-play and or work as an analyst. This idea was used in EPL soccer games back 10 or so years ago.

...The Big East equivalent of this would be to have Tim Brando and Tarik Turner call a Creighton-Villanova game, but for 10 minutes each half they're joined by gtmoblue or Jet915, and GumbyDammit or Westbrook. The fans behind the mike would lend expertise on their team, some passion, some complaining about poor officiating...

... imagine Brunson driving down the lane... he stops... he does a shot fake... he spins to pass it back out... meanwhile gtmoblue barks "steps!" or "travel!" or "3 seconds!"...

... Creighton takes the ball down court... gtmoblue barks "just feed Patton... mismatch on Patton..."

23. Games Recognizing Thompson, Carnesecca and Massimino:

- to celebrate Big East history and tradition, we commemorate past highlights on certain dates or weeks...

In my scenario, next year, we recognize 3 people (could be more, these are just quickly off the top of my head):

- John Thompson Jr., February 13th.
- Lou Carnesecca, February 27th.
- Rollie Massimino, November 13th or Opening Night NYE.

Each of these 3 legends is still with us.

- for JT Jr, each coach during the game places a towel over his right shoulder, the way John Thompson used to do. This would be done in games on or around February 13th, the day in 1980 when JT Jr beat Syracuse and said "Manley Fieldhouse is officially closed..."

- for Louie, each coach during the game wears his classic brown v-neck sweater with that crazy blue and red V-pattern on it. This would be done on or around February 27th, the date in 1985 when JT Jr wore Louie's good luck sweater in the MSG #1 vs #2 matchup.

- for Rollie, each coach during the game wears a classic button up Van Heusen dress shirt, no jacket, but loosens the collar and untucks the shirt tail so that it's hanging out the back at a minimum. This would be done maybe either on November 13th (his birthday) or maybe during our opening Big East game ariund New Year's Eve.

Also, at some point, each team would be recognized in some manner.
.

I'd like to see a scheduling alliance (not conference membership) with Gonzaga and St. Mary's.

I'd also like a preseason old Big East shootout matchups with Villanova, Georgetown, St. Johns, Seton Hall, Providence, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, West Virginia, UConn and Boston College at Madison Square Garden. You could easily group the current Big East teams, ACC teams and UConn/WVU separately so that you don't get any conference teams playing each other.

I'd also love more games with Notre Dame, although such an agreement wouldn't provide much benefit nor incentive for them.

+1000 on the throwback uniforms for a turn back the clock day for games. That would be awesome.

billyjack wrote:Figured we could start a new thread idea as we kick off 2017.

The Big East has always prided itself in innovation and forward thinking.
Recent exceptional ideas have included:

- Freshman foundation seminars in NYC.
- NYE Marathon which for 2017 has been replaced with the great idea of an MLK Day Marathon.

I would really be interested in compiling some ideas that all of you might have, which could be introduced into our conference. Just brainstorm... no idea is off the table because even ideas that would be considered crazy could spark some other thoughts.

I'll toss a couple of crazy ones out there to start things off, and we can number them...

1. Dunk contest at the Big East tourney.
2. 3-point contest at the Big East tourney.
3. Rookie showcase at the Big East tourney.

4. Schedule some games, either OOC or in Big East play, abroad... pick 5 different locations for each game in each country... say in Ireland, the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Portugal...
5. On either Opening Night, or during the MLK Marathon, either wear throwback historic uniforms and/or badass Johnny Unitas style black high-top sneakers.
6. Have Seton Hall go back to their older pirate head logo.

7. Have DePaul to go back to their old logo of the demon sitting on the basket taking a dump.
8. Alumni game or Old Timers game at Big East tourney.
9. Big East sponsorship of town youth leagues in each of our cities/ states... not AAU... town leagues where we could donate uniforms and equipment.

10. Try to make a Pac-12/ Big East Challenge work.

Some good ones in that group of 10. You should run this list past Stu Jackson and others at the Conference HQ.

I think #4 would run afoul of the NCAA...and they already allow foreign summer trips abroad. However, this past summer it seemed that the 3-4 BE schools were following a similar script (Italy trip). A league coordinated series of summer trips could/would follow your outline, vice everyone attempting to schedule their own, as is currently done.

Example: A league sponsored summer series on different continents: 2017 Colombia/Venezuela, 2018 Nigeria, 2019 France/Spain, 2020 Argentina/Brazil, 2021 Croatia/Serbia/Lithuania, 2022 China, 2023 Australia, etc. I used the countries which made the 2016 Olympics (and Colombia)- Hotbeds of Int'l. Hoops.

The order of these trips could be flexible. You would only have 1-3 teams participating each year (depending on the teams' last overseas trip and NCAA rules), but scheduling done by the BE office and FIBA on the slate of games and locations. Goodwill trips-no fighting allowed.

#9 was proposed on this board 2-3 years ago. At least an idea similar to your #9-

I don't think 1-3 would ever happen. NCAA wouldn't allow that and there is a risk for injury. I wish the Pac-12 challenge would happen but supposedly UCLA and Arizona think they are too good to be apart of it. Living on the west coast, I'd love to see it though....

A tri-state Big 5. Rutgers, SJU, SH, Cuse and UConn all play each other each year. Best record gets crowned the champ.

National Signing Day at MSG covered by Fox. Including detailed profiles and film on every Big East recruit.

gtmo- The order of these trips could be flexible. You would only have 1-3 teams participating each year (depending on the teams' last overseas trip and NCAA rules), but scheduling done by the BE office and FIBA on the slate of games and locations. Goodwill trips-no fighting allowed.

Jet, U probably misunderstood what I was suggesting... Teams go on overseas trips once every 4 years. So on any given season/year the BE would have at least 1 team, as many as 2 or 3 teams eligible to take an overseas summer trip. (Not the top 3 teams in the conference-as you may have taken the above statement to read:)

If the BE Conf. HQ coordinated summer junkets with FIBA, such trips as listed in my original post would be feasible, for all the eligible teams in a given year. As such, any BE team participating would play foreign teams in the given country/countries on their tour - just like they do now on summer trips. BE Conf coordination would take the guesswork out of the scenario, as folks would now know where they would be going in advance. By focusing on countries with Olympic participation, the guesswork and concerns regarding opponent quality "level of play" would be substantially reduced.

I received a package from Xavier's athletic department last week. It focused on updates related to Xavier specifically - the ongoing $25 million upgrade to the Cintas Center, new coaches, etc. - as well as a brochure on Big East related topics.

Though what I received cannot possibly be considered confidential information, I don't feel compelled to spill it out in detail here. What I will share is that the Big East leadership has established 6 "overarching categories to establish the most important priorities for the conference members."

Of particular interest to anyone here is the category having to do with Branding and Strategic Partnerships. There is a clear focus on building and strengthening the ties to Fox and MSG, and this particular "pillar" goes beyond to convey a desire to build attendance at all the conference's tournaments - not just the hoops tournament at MSG.

The other categories are solid, ranging from academic collaborations, business model and resources (i.e. probably a focus on changing media economics, etc.) to student-athlete development (e.g. the excellent program they put together for the freshmen in NYC, as one example).

Overall, a conference that is being led by sharp people with resources and a clear vision. Nonetheless, this thread is a great idea. The best ideas that come from it should be pushed to NY.

NJRedman wrote:A tri-state Big 5. Rutgers, SJU, SH, Cuse and UConn all play each other each year. Best record gets crowned the champ.

Very interesting, I like it.

It reminds me of the suggestion that constantly gets floated for a New Jersey State Tournament.

I have 1 question though - how would you handle St. John's - Seton Hall since they would play each other twice? Would they play a 3rd time in what would officially be an OOC game? Perhaps predetermine one of the two Big East meetings to count towards this event? Or something else?

Hall2012 wrote:

NJRedman wrote:A tri-state Big 5. Rutgers, SJU, SH, Cuse and UConn all play each other each year. Best record gets crowned the champ.

Very interesting, I like it.

It reminds me of the suggestion that constantly gets floated for a New Jersey State Tournament.

I have 1 question though - how would you handle St. John's - Seton Hall since they would play each other twice? Would they play a 3rd time in what would officially be an OOC game? Perhaps predetermine one of the two Big East meetings to count towards this event? Or something else?

When Temple, LaSalle, and St. Joe's were all in the A10 (LaSalle and St. Joe's still are) and they played home and home. they designated one of their two games against each other as the Big 5 game. I don't recall how they decided which game was the Big 5 game, but there was a process.