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Message: [QUOTE="unclejohn, post: 3205902, member: 9973"] If you want to go team by team and bad mouth them, you can. I think it just makes you look stupid, but have at if if you like. But here are some other factors to consider. Yes, Syracuse is gone. So is Louisville. But you really miss Miami? Good once a decade and just a quick jog down the turnpike for road games? Pitt, BC? they are terrible, and BC has been for a while. Pitt is a mess right now and I would take just about any Big East team over BC. Meanwhile, you can make snide remarks about Creighton, Butler, and Xavier. But check out their records long term. Creighton is near the top in attendance numbers every year. Xavier lost its coach recently. So did Butler. They've been doing that for years. In fact, Butler lost Thad Matta to Xavier. And what has happened since? They replaced them with someone else and kept going. Any school is going to have a hard time keeping Brad Stevens from jumping to the NBA, but for decades, the two of them have lost coaches - and replaced them. They have also been consistently good. The conference added three quality basketball schools. Oh, and by the way, Butler is better than Notre Dame. As a Marquette fan, I can tell you we miss Louisville. Our relationship with them predates the Big East and there has always been a respectful and often friendly animosity between the the two. But Louisville is heading for a major crash, and I do not think even pirating away Xavier's coach is going to prevent that. Teams are going to go from good to bad from year to year. Somebody has to be on the bottom of the conference. But if you are bad-mouthing Ewing, you are not paying attention to what he is doing. Meanwhile, BC has dwelled in the basement of the ACC since they got there, and Tommy Amaker turned them down to remain at Harvard. Perhaps we are never going to see another year when the BE puts three teams in the Final Four, or when it has three top seeds and puts eleven teams in the tournament (hard to do when you have eleven teams.) What you do have is eleven schools with great basketball traditions, solid programs, a commitment to keep them that way, great fan bases, and (present company excluded) don't give a $#!+ about football, so there will be no decisions made for the benefit of football (present company not excluded.) The reaction of UConn fans speaks for itself. So welcome back to a conference where basketball is king. And look forward to some wars on the court. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach