Do you have a quote from a commissioner indicating that the big east conference was a basketball conference come hell or Highwater? I don’t remember it.
Quite the opposite. The news and PR was that the conference was stronger, as a football and basketball conference. after BC, Miami, and VT left.
Mike Tranghese found himself in a bind.As he prepared for his wedding in 1996, Tranghese, the commissioner of the Big East conference, realized he did…
dailyorange.com
Shaw told Tranghese previously that it might be in the conference’s best interest to continue, but they needed a plan to go forward. The plan would be the 16-team formation. While others wrote the Big East off, a resurrection was in store.
The Big East added Louisville, DePaul, Cincinnati, South Florida and Marquette to develop the biggest conference in the nation, a cross-country conglomeration of institutions with prowess in both basketball and football.
‘It’s night and day,’ Cantor said. ‘If you looked at (the Big East) now and didn’t know that it had gone through a transition, it would seem like a very well-functioning cohesive conference.’
Patrick Nero, the commissioner of the America East Conference, was senior associate athletic director at Miami during its transition to the ACC. He said Tranghese was very respectful to the institutions that were leaving and was never bitter about the situation the Big East was facing. He worked to make his conference even stronger – and he succeeded.
‘If you look at the Big East today versus the Big East before the defections, they’ve actually come out of it stronger,’ Nero said. ‘That’s just a tribute to Mike. He went and got some very good replacements, and they’ve done a great job.’
The conference is also stable with television contracts. The Big East currently has a contract with ESPN to air football and men’s and women’s basketball games on the station until 2013-14. The league also has deals with SportsNet New York and CBS Sports.