The Catholic Seven

It has been awhile and a lot has happened since I last penned a post onto this blog. Conference realignment is just as exciting then as it is now. My disdain for the Big East isn't a secret if you thumb through some of my older posts. However the reasons for hating this league have evolved in a years time. My disdain for the Big Least was born through the BCS system. An 8-4 UConn team won the Big East and took a BCS spot away from deserving teams cemented my hatred of this league. However my hatred blinded me from the reality of the situation. Historically powerful basketball teams were being ignored to a point of open revolt. Today my disdain for this league stems from the desperate growth of the league to have enough teams to have a championship game in football at the cost of losing the best basketball leauge in the history of college basketball.

Phase One
Syracuse and Pitt announced that they would be leaving the Big East and heading together for the ACC. This came a year after WVU announced its decision to leave for the BigXII. WVU leaving hurt football tremendously. Losing Pitt isn't a death nail, but you do lose a traditionally strong football and hoops program. Losing Syracuse is HUGE. Syracuse was a founding member of this league and put basketball first. Pitt came in later as did WVU when the emphasis was put on football expansion. Losing Syracuse is like the SEC losing Alabama or the B10 losing Ohio State. Syracuse leaving sent the Big East into panic mode. Especially since the league was losing two more teams to the ACC. Virginia Tech, BC, and Miami left years earlier.

Phase Two
Louisville pledged its loyalty to the league up until it agreed on a deal to leave the league for the ACC. Rutgers. Louisville joined the league with Cincinnati, USF, Marquette and DePaul after the first batch of teams jumped to the ACC a few years prior. Louisville became the first member of the last class to join the league to jump ship. Rutgers was invited to join the league back during the founding announced that it was leaving to join the B10. Cincinnati, Louisville, and UConn all fought for the ACC spot with the Cards winning out. The Big East had to face the reality that it had lost its best football members in consecutive years.

Phase Three
Who remains then?
1. UConn
2. Cincinnati
3. USF
4. Temple (who was invited back after being kicked out)

Four teams does not make a conference. Following the WVU defection the Big East put in a plan to recruit more schools. All of these moves were football centered. Boise State, TCU, and San Diego State all agreed to come and then backed out leaving the following schools to make up the Big East.

1. UCF
2. Memphis
3. SMU
4. Tulane
5. Houston
6. Navy
7. ECU

UConn and Cincinnati have made it clear that they want out of this mess and quick.

These phases of change were all driven by football factors. Money talks and thanks to the devaluation of the league the TV shares have dropped drastically. The one thing that is saving the Big East is its basketball tradition. Until...

Phase Four
Notre Dame announced that it too would be going to the ACC in all sports except football. The flood gates were officially destroyed as the Irish saw the writing on the wall and left. There interests were being ignored in the football expansion arena. To answer this "betrayal" the league went after Tulane to get its numbers back up in hoops. One sizable sect was being ignored in all of this and that was the so called "Catholic Seven". Marquette, DePaul, Georgetown, St Johns, Providence, Villanova, and Seton Hall were forced to sit back and watch the league destroy itself in order to make some money in football. They finally rose together and said enough is enough, we are leaving to form our own hoops league. The Big East officially died.

Money Talks?

Don't hate the league because they are terrible in football, hate the league because they ignored their roots and thus cost them the very thing they wished to preserve. The Catholic Seven sent a message to the league that they had stripped too much away from what used to be great about the league. Critics will argue that you cannot make money as a hoops centered league. I agree with that statement but when you are replacing WVU, Pitt, Cuse, Louisville and Rutgers with Tulane, SMU etc the argument can be made for focusing on hoops. Observe-

ESPN is reporting that NBC Sports made an offer to the Big East for a television contract that is worth between $20-$23 million per year. That sounds pretty good for a league made up of mediocrity.  However ESPN is also reporting that the Big East had asked ESPN for a $300 million a year contract that was quickly turned down by the network for obvious reasons.  Football drives the ship?

Fox made an offer to the Catholic Seven that would net the new league $30-$40 million a year for a hoops centered league. The number could change based on who else joins the league but as of now the deal seems better than the one NBC offered to the Big East. There is more watchability in the basketball centered league than that of the Big East.

The Name
The Catholic Seven and the remaining Big East teams are fighting over the future of the Big East name.   The remaining Big East teams shouldn't even fight for it. The majority of the original Big East teams make up the Catholic Seven. They should rightfully keep the name. It would be an insult to the history of the league to allow this mockery of a league to keep that name. It should live on in an entity that has life and potential. The Catholic Seven have such potential whereas the remaining Big East teams have joined to form the new Conference USA.

Who Else?
If the Catholic Seven are smart they will target Dayton, Xavier, St Louis, VCU, Creighton and possibly  BYU to join the league. The A10 and the MVC are the two stand out basketball first conferences. A merger would make a premier basketball conference that would be fun to watch and would make the tv contract worth every penny. Who really wants to watch Tulane v SMU in prime time? A Georgetown Butler match up would draw more viewers than the best Big East match up.

The Big East is dead and the name should be given to a league that has a pulse and common sense. Quality is more important than quantity is a message that the Big East clearly doesn't understand or care about. They have only themselves to blame. The future is bright for the Catholic Seven and as a fan of college hoops I hope they thrive. I wish nothing but the worst for the Big East. Your greed and ignorance is your downfall. You robbed college hoops fan of great basketball. The divorce is coming soon but if you want a taste of what the new Big East will look like tune into the Conference USA tournament this spring. This is your future....