1-Year Anniversary...!

[billyjack]

I don't know what everyone was up to last December 23rd at 10:59pm, but at that moment I made a great decision by joining the Holy Land of Hoops.

Based on threads back then, our group of schools had a series of difficult hurdles (kind of like jumping the width of the Grand Canyon-- if we struck out we'd be bobbing lifeless on the Colorado River rapids down below-- or probably by now we'd be caught in a Hoover Dam turbine downstream) and an amazing amount of work (ok, I'm thinking on a level of James Madison 1787 in Philadelphia here). Looking at where we are now, I would say the Big East hit a grand slam.

Looking at the threads from last December, the one that strikes me the most is about how we were trying to start the league up in July 2014 rather than July 2015. Just incredible that we were up and running in the Summer of 2013.

Accomplishments:
- Invited and locked-in 3 excellent schools to form a 10 team league.
- Partnered with Fox Sports on a $500 million contract.
- Have tons of games each week televised nationally, including with heavyweights Gus Johnson, Bill Raftery, Gary Thorne, Dick Stockton, and new analysts and Big East alums Austin Croshere and Tarik Turner.
- Secured the "Big East" name.
- Negotiated an amicable early breakaway with the AAC.
- Officially kicked off the league in July 2013, two years ahead of time.
- Secured Madison Square Garden as our Big East Tournament site thru 2026.
- Hired an accomplished and well-respected commissioner.
- Maintained our standing as one of the top, most-respected conferences in the country.
- Recruited at an unbelievable rate with a ton of Top 100 and Top 150 players.

This has been an amazing year. With sensible planning by the 10 schools, lack of bragging and bluster (yeah I'm looking at you ACC), maturity and respect, we are way ahead of where anyone could have reasonably expected us to be, even me, and I'm a huge BE homer...!

Thanks to the Admins of this site, who have done an outstanding job, and a fantastic group of posters here, we've had great, civil and respectable threads.

[TheHall]

Great post BillyJack

[ArmyVet]

Couldn't have said it better myself billyjack!

[Burrito]

nice summary billjack. What the League has accomplished so far is very impressive. Hopefully the strong recruiting that we see in the 2014 class continues going forward.

[admin]

I hadn't realized the anniversary, so I appreciate you mentioning it. We started this board on a whim not knowing what would happen to the Big East and what the C7 were going to do, so it's completely amazing to me what this league has become in short a short period. It has been a fun year and things have really just begun.

Happy holidays to you and yours!

[Omaha1]

Really love the site and appreciate everyone keeping it civil. Great league and great site!

[NJRedman]

It was a crazy beginning but we still got a whole lot left of this crazy ride of ours! What happens when our schools actually start playing each other? Who is going to be the first champ of this new era? After every big shake up some schools come out better, some come out worse and some stay the same. It's exciting to see who falls where. Impossible to tell ahead of time.

Been a crazy year and can't wait to see what the future holds for us.

[X-man]

As a Xavier fan, I am thrilled to part of this league. And with league play just a week off, it only gets better. Nice post to start this thread, and to this I can only add one thing before the league battle begins......................................... Merry Christmas to all!!!

[Vill]

I've enjoyed "meeting" this group. Merry Christmas to everyone.