...this one basically praising the Big East.

Big East Proves Its Merit

With 4 Teams Remaining, Big East Proves Its Merit

By Zach Berman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 28, 2009

BOSTON, March 27 -- Jay Wright became an assistant coach at Villanova in 1987, two years after the Wildcats won an improbable national championship by surviving a Final Four that included three Big East teams. Wright remembers when the Big East was a nine-team league -- and all the schools were actually in the east -- that featured a handful of future professional players on every roster and was the elite conference in college basketball.

Defections, expansion and time have changed the complexion of the conference and the sport. Yet more than two decades later, the Big East has established itself again as the top conference -- at least for this season.

Wright is now the head coach of Villanova, which faces Big East rival Pittsburgh on Saturday night in the East Region final. The winner will guarantee at least one Big East team will reach the Final Four. Five Big East teams made it to the region semifinals, and four of them advanced to the region finals.

"As coaches and promoters of our leagues, sometimes we tend to over-exaggerate and inflate some things that never really come to fruition," Pittsburgh Coach Jamie Dixon said. "But if anything has lived up to it, it would be this conference and what's happened this year."

The claim of conference supremacy between the Big East and ACC made for season-long fodder. Three ACC teams were ranked No. 1. Three Big East teams achieved the same feat. But with North Carolina the ACC's only region finalist, there is little reason for debate.

"We could hear the talk about it," Villanova forward Dwayne Anderson said. "And to answer that question, there are five teams from the Big East in the Sweet 16. That pretty much sums it up."

Anderson grew up in Silver Spring supporting Maryland. He emulated former Terrapins standouts Juan Dixon, Byron Mouton and Chris Wilcox and followed the ACC.

Juan Dixon's younger brother, Jermaine, now starts for the Panthers. He, too, grew up reveling in the rivalry among Maryland, Duke and North Carolina. He only watched the Big East when his brother's friend, Kevin Braswell, played for Georgetown.

When Juan left Maryland following the 2002 national championship, Jermaine opened his eyes to college basketball outside the ACC. Fellow Baltimore natives starred in the Big East, such as Carmelo Anthony at Syracuse and Rudy Gay at Connecticut. By that point, Jermaine realized that the Big East was equal to the ACC.

"I started to get a sense of what the Big East was like and how physical it was," Jermaine Dixon said. "Personally, I thought the Big East was the best conference. We've definitely shown it now. It definitely shows that the coaches in the Big East are doing a great job recruiting players and getting players in, mainly from the New York, Maryland-D.C and Philadelphia area. It has the better players coming out of high school."

Nine of the 10 starters on the court in Saturday's game will be from the areas Dixon mentioned.

Three Villanova starters are from the Washington area -- Anderson (St. John's and St. Thomas More), forward Dante Cunningham (St. John's and Potomac) and guard Scottie Reynolds (Herndon). The other two -- forwards Shane Clark and Reggie Redding -- are from Philadelphia.

On Pittsburgh, Jermaine Dixon is from Baltimore and forward Sam Young (Friendly and Hargrave Military Academy) is from the Washington area. Guard Levance Fields and forward Tyrell Biggs are from New York. The only player not from a Big East hotbed is center DeJuan Blair, who is a Pittsburgh native.

"I'm the only basketball player that came out of Pittsburgh," Blair joked.

But the Big East's dominance this season is as much about the quantity of teams than the quality of players. After the ACC poached Virginia Tech, Miami and Boston College from the Big East earlier this decade to strengthen football, the Big East raided Conference USA to become a 16-team basketball league. The addition of programs such as Louisville and Marquette added to established powers Connecticut, Syracuse and Georgetown, among others.

In recent seasons, Wright has rebuilt Villanova into a national contender and Jamie Dixon added to Pittsburgh's success created by former coach Ben Howland. Gone was the tradition of a league isolated to the major markets in the Northeast.

"I think what we have going right now in the Big East is something that's just new and unique to college sports," Wright said. "I don't think anybody knows how to deal with it yet. I think people always tend to pick the negative and say it's too big, coaches are going to get fired. But how about the fact that any season ticket holder in any school in this conference saw incredible basketball every night? It was awesome. To be in it, to play in it, was incredible every game."

The NCAA tournament has established what Big East supporters have argued all along. And the annual conference tournament in New York might reappear at the Final Four this season -- just like in the 1985, when Wright shed a tear watching Villanova win the national championship and there was no argument that the conference resided at the top of college basketball.

"I hope we do win," Wright said. "But at least if we don't, there's a Big East team going to the Final Four."