I was 8 when nova won their first title in the 80s. I do remember the game vs Georgetown but that is all i remember about the whole year. The child nostalgia tells me 80s big east but the 16 team big east in the 2000s is definitely the one im fondest for. Being from the Midwest I loved that Marquette and Depaul were in the league. The 16 team conference meant that their tournament started earlier than anyone and the 9 v 16 always featured Depaul and a bubble team so I was always interested in that game. I really miss that league, but realistically, if syracuse came back to the big east the league would feel the same. Nova, Georgetown, Syracuse, and UConn are what really made that league in my opinion.

The best on-court (and on-field) product of the Big East was unequivocally the 2005-2013 phase. Basketball may have only had two national champions during this era (Louisville and UConn), but six programs (Louisville, Georgetown, Villanova, UConn, West Virginia and Syracuse) all made the Final Four during this stretch as well. In addition, other programs (Pittsburgh, Marquette, Cincinnati) made Sweet 16s and/or Elite Eights. Football had strong success too thanks to West Virginia, Louisville, Cincinnati, USF and Rutgers. I've said it before, but this version of the conference was a beautiful mixture of different-minded institutions, and all were brought together and bounded by circumstance. You had a mixture of Privates and Publics, Rural and Metropolitan, Football and Non-Football, and Basketball-First and Football-First programs. What it made for was competitive matchups, entertaining games and passionate fan bases united together to create a truly wonderful conference that, unfortunately, was never meant to be held together long-term. A majority of members constantly had one foot out the door, creating turmoil and a constant chip on all the teams' shoulders - seeking to position themselves to get out and onto another conference. It made for incredible TV (for basketball and football alike). I sincerely doubt we will ever see such an arrangement and/or conference ever again like this version of the Big East.

To the "Omaha isn't East Coast" crowd - I hate to disappoint, but the Big Ten does not have ten members. The Big 12 does not have twelve members. The ACC and PAC have members that are not, in fact, on the coasts. Branding wise, the present version of the Big East, unlike any other era of the conference before, has unanimous like-minded membership that is committed to high-level college basketball in major urban media markets with a strong focus centered around New York City. Creighton, like DePaul, Marquette, Butler and Xavier, are very much midwestern cities. However, Creighton continues to have one of the strongest national fan bases around, and they regularly sell out all of their tickets for the BET and for road games. There were former Big East members, even in the NE, that could not bring the fan support or interest that Creighton has been able to bring to the conference, and their commitment to success, their facilities and their fan support were big reasons the C7 was willing to invest in them as a long-term member of the Big East. They have been one of the strongest additions to a conference since the last great wave of realignment, and the Big East is happy they are on-board.

Kudos to whomever voted for the AAC. That made for a good laugh.

I will never forgive ESPN for poaching Cuse and Pitt. They will never get my money as a cable or streaming subscriber in my lifetime.

From a pure basketball perspective, the original Big East 1979-1991 was the best. Its was so innovative and hd crazy good basketball with multiple hall of fame players and coaches. From a Rutgers' fan perspective the BE 2.0, 2004-2013 was the best. We were actually relevant in football. The BE was putting 8 and 10 teams into the NCAA Tournament. Those were great times.

(05-22-2021 06:58 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  

(05-22-2021 04:24 PM)Bogg Wrote:  

(05-22-2021 02:25 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  I would put 2013-present Big East last, no matter how good it is. A school in Omaha, NE in the Big East feels like jumping the shark.

It's not any weirder than a team in Tampa or Miami.

Tampa or Miami are a stretch but at least hit the scale on something. Omaha has nothing in terms of northeastern fitness.

Miami is a city with a blend of northeastern culture that’s located in South Florida. The Miami-Northeast cultural distance is minimal when compared to the Omaha-Northeast cultural distance.

Tampa has less of a case than Miami, but has a sizable amount of Northeastern transplants and is at least located in the Eastern part of the US to technically fit the “Big East” title.

Omaha doesn’t hit any notes, culturally or geographically. You can spin Miami or Tampa, but there’s no way to spin Omaha.

Spin nothing, Miami was added for the football program. Full stop. Nothing to do with culture, road trips, snow birds, or anything else. USF was added to keep Florida recruiting alive. That's it.

Omaha being grouped with Milwaukee and Chicago makes at least as much sense as Miami being put in the same bucket as DC and Philadelphia.

(05-22-2021 03:06 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  They're all great eras.

And remember, had ESPN had its way, there would be no Big East today.

I think the ACC had and still has a lofty plan for #16, but I sometimes wonder what would have happened if the ACC had added Georgetown around 2013 before the split. Maybe the ESPN would have paid for this move.

Wihtout the leader, the remaining C7 may have stayed with the football schools? Or left to different leagues or formed a new league without retaining the name “Big East?”

(05-23-2021 11:56 AM)Bogg Wrote:  

(05-22-2021 06:58 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  

(05-22-2021 04:24 PM)Bogg Wrote:  

(05-22-2021 02:25 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  I would put 2013-present Big East last, no matter how good it is. A school in Omaha, NE in the Big East feels like jumping the shark.

It's not any weirder than a team in Tampa or Miami.

Tampa or Miami are a stretch but at least hit the scale on something. Omaha has nothing in terms of northeastern fitness.

Miami is a city with a blend of northeastern culture that’s located in South Florida. The Miami-Northeast cultural distance is minimal when compared to the Omaha-Northeast cultural distance.

Tampa has less of a case than Miami, but has a sizable amount of Northeastern transplants and is at least located in the Eastern part of the US to technically fit the “Big East” title.

Omaha doesn’t hit any notes, culturally or geographically. You can spin Miami or Tampa, but there’s no way to spin Omaha.

Spin nothing, Miami was added for the football program. Full stop. Nothing to do with culture, road trips, snow birds, or anything else. USF was added to keep Florida recruiting alive. That's it.

No one said anything about why they were added. That’s a separate conversation.

This conversation was about the cultural distance of the cities. Tampa, and especially Miami, have more elements of cultural similarity to the traditional core Big East footprint than Omaha. That’s all the conversation was and the points people made.

(05-23-2021 10:43 AM)RUScarlets Wrote:  I will never forgive ESPN for poaching Cuse and Pitt. They will never get my money as a cable or streaming subscriber in my lifetime.

Isn't Rutgers in a better situation right now than they were in the Big East?

(05-23-2021 01:20 PM)random asian guy Wrote:  

(05-22-2021 03:06 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  They're all great eras.

And remember, had ESPN had its way, there would be no Big East today.

I think the ACC had and still has a lofty plan for #16, but I sometimes wonder what would have happened if the ACC had added Georgetown around 2013 before the split. Maybe the ESPN would have paid for this move.

Wihtout the leader, the remaining C7 may have stayed with the football schools? Or left to different leagues or formed a new league without retaining the name “Big East?”

The ACC does have a plan for #16, and that plan, realistically or unrealistically, is Notre Dame. Jim Phillips, as new commissioner, has many successful qualities. His ND background and connections are certainly two of them. Unless there is a way for Texas to come on as #16, any other hypothetical additions are just unlikely. The ACC is holding #16 for ND.

Georgetown was never a realistic option for the ACC as a non-football member. All expansion decisions were being driven by football-first initiatives. Even with ESPN's attempted killing of the Big East, there was not much financial incentive to slide them over to the ACC. ESPN's dream objective would have been the C7 staying with the AAC for pennies on the dollar, or having the C7 merge with the A10, with the new A10 contract still less than what they were paying for the BE. They weren't going to pay the C7 more and saw more value with the Big East being broken apart than staying together.

One of the fun things about the 2004-2012 era was that in football it always felt like the conference title race was wide open. Unlike the other BCS conferences who had entrenched historical favorites, the BE was the wild wild East.

(05-23-2021 04:14 PM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  Georgetown was never a realistic option for the ACC as a non-football member. All expansion decisions were being driven by football-first initiatives. Even with ESPN's attempted killing of the Big East, there was not much financial incentive to slide them over to the ACC.

There were backchannel discussions on this exact scenario once Maryland gave notice to the Big Ten. There was some legitimate concern in ACC circles that the loss of the Washington DC market could affect its television rights.

While I don't have the exact story, apparently some options were discussed to either bring in Georgetown for all sports (giving them a fixed ramp-up period for football) or to tandem with Navy and let the Midshipmen serve as DC's de facto football team in the ACC. This didn't go very far because Georgetown didn't want to be the same Benedict Arnold that Boston College was when they jumped ship, and given Georgetown's part in the secret Fox Sports discussions, it would likely have capsized the whole deal.

Anyone else think this is about basketball, since The Big East didn’t start playing football since 1991.

One great irony of all this is had the ACC commissioner not left the country for vacation after the Florida St add, Miami might have joined the ACC and their might not have ever been a Big East football conference.

(05-23-2021 01:51 PM)schmolik Wrote:  

(05-23-2021 10:43 AM)RUScarlets Wrote:  I will never forgive ESPN for poaching Cuse and Pitt. They will never get my money as a cable or streaming subscriber in my lifetime.

Isn't Rutgers in a better situation right now than they were in the Big East?

Yeah hindsight is 20/20. The conference fit was fine at the time and would have remained fine till the end of time had the North East block stuck together.

(05-23-2021 04:26 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  One of the fun things about the 2004-2012 era was that in football it always felt like the conference title race was wide open. Unlike the other BCS conferences who had entrenched historical favorites, the BE was the wild wild East.

Yes, from 2005 - 2012 the Big East football was great fun to watch and follow.

Despite all the negativity from the media and other conferences, good football was played and as you say, it was competitive, you never knew who was going to win.

(05-23-2021 06:17 PM)CardinalJim Wrote:  Anyone else think this is about basketball, since The Big East didn’t start playing football since 1991.

Yes, when I read the thread title, I thought basketball only and replied accordingly. Didn't bother to read the actual post which did mention football, so was surprised to see football mentioned by some, I just assumed it was about hoops.

Not many votes for the 1991-2003 era?

To me that era was Big East’s football glory days. The Big East teams actually played for the national championship games (99 VT, 01 Miami, 02 Miami) and won one (01 Miami). The Big East also won the bakestball chamopionships during that period (Cuse 02-03 and Uconn 03-04). Nobody questioned about the power status.

But I understand why the 2004-2013 era is many people’s favorite. The basketball league was really deep. The 16 team double bye format at MSG was a creative idea. The football had the underdog appeal and was fun to watch. Even the ESPN was willing to raise the payout significantly...

(05-24-2021 10:44 AM)random asian guy Wrote:  Not many votes for the 1991-2003 era?

To me that era was Big East’s football glory days. The Big East teams actually played for the national championship games (99 VT, 01 Miami, 02 Miami) and won one (01 Miami). The Big East also won the bakestball chamopionships during that period (Cuse 02-03 and Uconn 03-04). Nobody questioned about the power status.

But I understand why the 2004-2013 era is many people’s favorite. The basketball league was really deep. The 16 team double bye format at MSG was a creative idea. The football had the underdog appeal and was fun to watch. Even the ESPN was willing to raise the payout significantly...

Well, the basketball purists are always going to pint to the early years, before the football driven expansion, as the glory days.

For the football crowd, most of 1991-2003 was spent in the shadow of Miami and those weren’t particularly fond.

1991-2003 was definitely when BE football was at its height. 2004-2012 was good too but there were fewer big brand names to speak of.

(05-23-2021 01:31 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  No one said anything about why they were added. That’s a separate conversation.

This conversation was about the cultural distance of the cities. Tampa, and especially Miami, have more elements of cultural similarity to the traditional core Big East footprint than Omaha. That’s all the conversation was and the points people made.

Sure, and in an era where half the Big East membership is in the Midwest, Creighton is less of an outlier than Miami/USF were in a conference that was otherwise DC and north (aside from the cup of coffee VT had).

EDIT: You can even argue they're not even as bad as Notre Dame was for the first decade they were in the conference, before the Big East jumped into the Midwest with both feet.