While college realignment centered around football and TV money takes the nation by storm, the basketball-centric Big East looks like an island of stability.
The Pac-12 has virtually collapsed, with eight schools leaving for the Big Ten and Big 12 in recent days. Two other Pac-12 schools, Cal and Stanford, are reportedly in talks with the ACC.
Through all the turmoil, the Big East, a basketball-centric league with no football, remains constant with its 11 schools, including reigning national champion UConn, coached by Jersey City native Dan Hurley. This year the Big East will welcome back Rick Pitino as the new coach at St. John’s after he previously coached in the league at Providence and Louisville, while Ed Cooley looks to revive downtrodden Georgetown after coming over from Providence.
“In 40-plus years, teams have changed but the Big East model that Dave Gavitt built has remained intact,” Pitino, who has led five programs to the NCAA Tournament and three to the Final Four, told NJ Advance Media Tuesday by phone. “Playoffs at Madison Square Garden, it’s been traditionally a Catholic-school league except for Butler and UConn and it has not looked to expand.
“It’s a basketball league, so change is not being altered in the Big East and it’s a wonderful thing.”
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The Big East has five teams in the latest CBS Sports college basketball preseason poll, with Marquette at No. 6, UConn at 8, Creighton 9, Villanova 24 and St. John’s 26. (Seton Hall, which has added a slew of transfers under second-year coach Shaheen Holloway, will be an “intriguing” team, Holloway told NJ Advance Media.)
The latest ACC reports might make sense in terms of adding two elite academic institutions to a league in danger of losing Florida State, Miami and Clemson, but the idea of student-athletes from various sports trekking back and forth from the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic Coast seems crazy to many.
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