'Nova knows what Big East will become
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - The flood of fans here in their red Louisville Cardinals sweatshirts and windbreakers keep approaching John Paquette and asking him to make them a promise.
Come next March, come the end of Louisville's first season in the super-conference that will be the Big East, these people clothed in crimson want Paquette, the Big East's associate commissioner, to make sure they'll have seats at Madison Square Garden for the conference tournament.
"You could argue," Paquette said Saturday, "that because the Garden seats only 19,000, it will be a tougher ticket than the Final Four."
Tougher for the fans, yes, and tougher still for some of the teams, Villanova among them.
As if the urgency to win that accompanies every NCAA tournament run wasn't enough for the Wildcats, there's this, too: The Big East expands to 16 teams next season, adding five teams from Conference USA - Louisville, Cincinnati, South Florida, Marquette and DePaul - changing its complexion as a conference and making it harder on its traditional Catholic colleges to sustain success.
"Oh, it's going to be different," Paquette said. "There's no question. It's going to be different. And Villanova fans and St. John's fans and Seton Hall fans are going to have to get used to seeing Louisville and Cincinnati at the Garden, playing in the [conference] tournament, probably doing well.
"The competition's going to be unbelievable, but it's going to be different."
In the Big East's hallowed heydays during the 1980s, its schools, scattered up and down the Northeast corridor of the United States, maintained a special camaraderie amid their competition. There was a shared sense of pride that was never greater than it was 20 years ago, when Georgetown, St. John's and Villanova reached the Final Four, and the Wildcats won that stunning national title.
Even Saturday, it was clear that pride was still strong, as 'Nova assistant coach Ed Pinckney talked to reporters about that '85 run, and Louisville coach Rick Pitino quipped that when he was at Providence and Lou Carnesecca was at St. John's and Rollie Massimino was at Villanova, the conference must have had a quota that 50 percent of its coaches had to be Italian.
But those were days when a Catholic college could still consider a national championship an annual, attainable goal. Only three Catholic schools have reached the Final Four since 1985, largely because those bigger schools now affiliated with the Bowl Championship Series have decided to use the monetary spoils of college football to build themselves into basketball powerhouses.
In fact, that's surely why the Big East's bigwigs made certain Marquette and DePaul would join. Should the conference's nine BCS schools (including Notre Dame) decide to break away, as they almost did years ago, the remaining seven schools could still form an all-Catholic conference of their own.
For now, though, 'Nova faces Florida today for a shot at the Sweet 16, and it would behoove the Wildcats to seize this opportunity, for who knows when they'll walk this way again?
"We don't really look ahead at what it's going to be, but we all know," Villanova coach Jay Wright said. "We know it's coming. You can't avoid it. ... The best way I can put it is, we feel fortunate we had a good season this year."
They have to feel fortunate because, with so many key players returning and the quality of play in the Big East rising, the Wildcats could have a better team and a worse record next season.
"You could be a really, really good team and have a sub-.500 record in that league," said Florida coach Billy Donovan, Pitino's point guard on the 1987 Providence team that reached the Final Four. "It'll be incredible. One of the things people don't put a premium on is, we had to play 15 SEC games this year. It was a mental, physical and emotional grind. I don't think it will be any different in the Big East playing against Louisville and Connecticut and Syracuse."
It will be different than the SEC. It will be more difficult.
Next year, only 12 teams will qualify for the Big East tournament, meaning it's possible a team could earn a bid to the NIT without earning one to its own conference tournament. And who's more likely to be left out?
The Big East's balance of power shifted long ago, and those teams now near the bottom - Seton Hall, Providence, St. John's - will have a long, hard climb ahead of them. Those near the top, too.
"This is an opportunity you can't look past," Villanova guard Mike Nardi said. "You never know if you'll get back here."
Especially once next season starts, and the reds and the rest have arrived.
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