Smizik: Big East needs to downsize
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
By Bob Smizik, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The best college basketball league in Division I is believed to be the Atlantic Coast Conference, with Wake Forest, North Carolina and Duke ranked in the top five this week. Many will argue that it's the Big East, whose membership includes Syracuse and Connecticut, the two most recent national champions, both of which are in this week's top 10.
Still others might suggest the best league is the Big Ten, home of No. 1 Illinois and two other top 20 teams, or the Big 12, with three teams in the top 15. In years past, the Southeastern Conference would have received consideration.
Next season, however, in the eyes of many this argument will cease to exist. Next season, there's a belief, particularly in these parts, that the Big East will be the best conference.
Not only will it have its usual array of top teams in Connecticut, Syracuse, Pitt, Notre Dame and newly ascended West Virginia, but the Big East will be adding Louisville, Cincinnati and Marquette, all traditional powers.
It would be easy to argue the Big East would have the best collection of teams in the country.
But it won't be the best conference.
At 16 teams, it will be too big.
The best conference isn't necessarily the one with the best teams. Even when the ACC didn't have the best teams -- like in 1985 when the Big East had three teams in the Final Four -- it was the best conference. It was so because it had tradition and rivalries and fabulous home-and-home competition. That's what makes a great conference.
The quality of teams can change every year, but traditions and intense rivalries do not.
It won't help the Big East, which also takes in South Florida and DePaul while losing Boston College next season, that it has decided go with a one-division format. In Pitt's case, for example, that means it will play 10 teams once, three teams twice and two teams not at all. Home-and-home competition, the heart of great rivalries and great conferences, would be at a minimum.
It might be three years before some conference members play in Pittsburgh.
There is a way around this. There is a way to establish scalding-hot rivalries, to birth grand traditions and to form the best league in the country.
In order to do so, multiple cold and heartless acts would be required. But, hey, this is college athletics. Remember, it was the Big East, with barely a hint of guilt, that put the Temple football program on the street for next season.
As constituted next year, the Big East will have nine football-playing schools in its 16-team membership. Almost all of those schools are large public institutions. The schools that don't play football are small, private and Catholic.
It's never a good idea to have such diverse members under the same umbrella. It's always best for universities within the same conference to have similar goals and objectives. With such divergent interests, massive divorce is the way to go. The football-playing schools need to separate from the other members and form a league of their own, where schools share common interests and goals.
It won't hurt that this league would be a basketball powerhouse. The members would be: Connecticut, Syracuse, Pitt, West Virginia, Notre Dame, Louisville, Cincinnati, Rutgers and South Florida. What a league that would be. If it were together this season, every member except South Florida and Rutgers would have an excellent chance of qualifying for the NCAA tournament.
The Big East teams left out of this league would be DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, St. John's, Seton Hall and Villanova. These schools have many things in common, most notably they've all seen better days as basketball powers. They all are going downhill and most don't figure to stop.
Let them form a league of their own where one or two teams would make the tournament every year. They probably wouldn't get that many invitations if they remained with the other nine schools.
A couple of problems.
One is the uneven numbers. Nine is not good. As a means of getting down to eight, tell Notre Dame if it wants to stay, it must join their football league. If not, ship the Irish to the other league. If the Irish stay, so much the better. The weak football league would be stronger and a nine-team basketball league is workable.
An even larger problem is name. The Big East is a well-known brand and the have-nots, most of whom helped form the conference, would not easily let it go. That's fine. Let them have it. There are enough marketing geniuses around to come up with a catchy, clever name that would quickly become popular for the new league.
College athletics is so much about positions. That's why there have been so many league changes in recent years. The football-playing schools of the Big East need to position themselves to reap the benefits of a great basketball league. The only way to do that is to say goodbye to the schools that don't play football.
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