Big East's expansion a double-edged sword
By Mike Prisuta
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, July 2, 2005
The new Big East Conference officially became a reality this week, as newcomers Cincinnati, DePaul, Louisville, Marquette and South Florida were formally admitted.
We've known that a day such as Thursday was coming since November of 2003.
We won't know for some time if this radical realignment signifies progress or another giant step toward the apocalypse.
Probably, it'll constitute a little of both.
As far as football is concerned, the Big East had to do something in the wake of the departures of Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College.
Louisville provides an instant influx of much-needed credibility, while Cincinnati and South Florida provide someone else to schedule. And while the new eight-team Big East won't be challenging the Big Ten or the SEC for national supremacy any time soon, there are those associated with Big East football, as it stands now, who are convinced the conference no longer need sweat losing its BCS affiliation.
So, that's a win.
But Big East basketball, with its bloated, 16-team configuration, may be about to discover that bigger isn't necessarily better, and in fact, might be worse.
The problem is a 16-team conference has to get exceptionally creative in scheduling a 16-game conference season. The Big East's initial response is that members will play 13 conference opponents, doubling up with three and skipping two entirely. Rivalries will be considered when trying to determine which teams play twice and which teams won't play at all, but television appeal and national standing will carry more weight when schedules are being compiled each offseason.
Such an approach cheapens the conference regular-season championship considerably and makes the Big East more of a loose affiliation than a conference in the traditional sense of the concept.
And that's a loss.
Of course, college basketball has been moving away from tradition and more toward made-for-TV events for some time. The new Big East isn't breaking any new ground here; it's merely rushing forward in the same direction everyone else is already headed.
Still, you have to wonder if the Big East isn't moving too far, too fast.
Although the NCAA Tournament has become a monster event and the make-or-break barometer for aspiring Top 25 programs, the regular season still ought to mean something. Only so many teams, after all, can reach the Sweet 16, the Elite Eight and the Final Four. For those destined not to make it quite that far, what transpires in advance of March Madness ought to have value.
In the upcoming Gargantuan East, what takes place before the brackets are filled out will be almost exclusively about rankings, seeds and positioning for the Big Dance and, of course, the Big East Tournament (still a 12-team affair).
Now, there's less reason to tune in until then.
The conference may have grown in stature and, at the same time, shrunk in appeal.
Mike Prisuta is a columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
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