nitpicky about big east exodus language

[BigEast]

I always know I've done well when I get to the "but we won a championship" response.

 

[Fishy]

I always know I've done well when I get to the "but we won a championship" response.

No, you'll know you've done well when you actually have a championship to use in an argument.

 

[UConNick]

Look, it's whatever you want to believe, but it's simply not the facts. Emotionally, yeah, maybe you have a better claim to being what the Big East used to be. But literally, and in actuality, the old Big East still exists as the American.

 

[UCFan1513]

Neither of them are really the "Big East" at the end of the day

 

[zyron]

I always know I've done well when I get to the "but we won a championship" response.

Yeah, you're right. If only UConn could have the post season success that the new "Big East" teams have achieved. Idiot.

 

[NC_Uconn_Fan]

I always know I've done well when I get to the "but we won a championship" response.

Horrible response big east. The whole reason to play is to win a championship. Add to the fact UCONN has won multiple championships recently makes you look foolish.

 

[Devland]

That's really what you think? The conference with Providence, SJU, Seton Hall, Georgetown, and Nova and the Big East name isn't the original but the conference with UCONN and a dozen random teams is?

I'm going to buy an AMC Pacer and Rolls Royce. Do you think I can get $2ook for it?
BTW-UConn has more Men's Basketball National Championships in their history than all the current "Big East" teams combined do. So I guess there is more tradition in the American Conference than the NBE.

 

[BigEast]

I'm going to buy an AMC Pacer and Rolls Royce. Do you think I can get $2ook for it?
BTW-UConn has more Men's Basketball National Championships in their history than all the current "Big East" teams combined do. So I guess there is more tradition in the American Conference than the NBE.

That's pretty awesome. You can close your eyes and think about them the next time you are playing Tulsa or Tulane. Memories are nice to have, for sure.

 

[BigEast]

No, you'll know you've done well when you actually have a championship to use in an argument.

Refresh my memory on your role in any UCONN championship?

 

[Devland]

That's pretty awesome. You can close your eyes and think about them the next time you are playing Tulsa or Tulane. Memories are nice to have, for sure.

I don't know what team you root for but I'm willing to bet you know nothing about championship memories. Does any team in the current Big East even realize that the NCAA tournament is more than one weekend?

 

[Fishy]

You're flailing, my boy.

You can try all the misdirection you'd like, but your argument is a loser and it's hindered further by your lack of eloquence.

Time to fold.

 

[Phorcys]

You're flailing, my boy.

You can try all the misdirection you'd like, but your argument is a loser and it's hindered further by your lack of eloquence.

Time to fold.

In light of your relatively new avatar, how does a shark deliver a throat punch?

Is it with the snout or a quick flick of the tail?

The fins seem small and rather useless for this purpose.

 

[Leebo]

Not at all what I said.

I understand the legal semantics of it

As long as you accept that the Catholic schools were the traitors jumping ship, you can tell yourself whatever you want about authenticity.

 

[Windsorlocks]

This is the BE conference at its inception in 1979:
Syracuse
St. John's
Georgetown
Boston College
Connecticut
Seton Hall
Providence
The next year it added Villanova, in year 4 Pittsburg, remaining that way for quite a few years before maximum expansion, then contraction, and a very brief reconfiguration before the Catholic 7 left. And took the name. When it was at 9 Eastern-only teams for many years, 5 of those 9 are teams now part of the 10 team league called.....the BE. Regardless of who left over the years, how much the league fluctuated, the present configuration is still closer to the original BE, with 5 of the 8 teams in year two of the original BE now in the present BE. Round Robin began in year two, and 5 of the original 8 that played that first round robin are in the present BE.


Which I prefer to call it, not the NBE. It's one league's history. Consider: it fluctuated many times. Each time a school came or went, it was a "new" BE, the lineup changed. After it's early years, it changed much more often, the numbers fluctuated because of the realignment process and $$. Connecticut is part of that history, but I don't begrudge 5 of the 8 schools from year 2 of the BE keeping that name. No, we did not have to give them the brand name. But they left what was a completely bastardized BE where the bb league that Gavitt envisioned was pretty damn hard to recognize in that form. But I still look at is as one history, characterized by a small start of 7-9 teams for many years, rapid expansion, defections, expansion, contraction, and the Catholic 7 left to continue Gavitt's original idea for a basically Eastern bb league. I can't possibly begrudge them taking the name he chose for his league, when the Catholic 7 includes 5 of the original 7-9. The name is not transferred based on where the power lies. The BE as we knew it at it's heights, is scattered all over. I don't know why anyone could really claim the AAC deserves to carry the name more then 4 of the charter schools from the original 7 school league, and 5 of the 8 schools from year two.

The present BE could be a better bb league, Ct. and one other school, and then we could once again have some proper regional rivalries, and energy like the Georgetown game. That league will never be what it was in it's history past, but I'll bet if we were in that league, for bb, there would be less people begrudging where the name landed.


I know it's not on the founder, Dave Gavitt. But, seriously, if alive and if asked, which league do you think he would say most resembles what he was thinking when he hatched the idea of a strong Eastern bb league? The AAC, or the BE? Neither would be a perfect match, but, he would pick the present BE as far more recognizable. One big question he would have is where is Ct? Where is Syracuse? But he would take just one look at the AAC and likely wonder what the hell were they thinking? Oh yeah, football, the almighty $$. This is rhetorical of course, Gavitt witnessed much of this.....

The argument seems to be based on rating the power of what remains. The "new" BE is not as power laden, therefore it should not have the brand name of a once powerful league. In fairness, if that is the case, then the name should have been retired. Because the AAC is certainly not the Big "East" either. Yet, surely Gavitt would approve of the continuation of a bb centric league in the East? And I know which of the two present leagues he would be more comfortable with carrying the name of the league he established in 79......

 

[7774]

That's pretty awesome. You can close your eyes and think about them the next time you are playing Tulsa or Tulane. Memories are nice to have, for sure.

I enjoy these responses the most. Nothing says "I'm too dumb or ignorant to understand the end game of conference realignment" more than responses like this. Playing Tulsa and Tulane is great. Being in this conference is the only thing between us and athletic irrelevance 40 years from now, which is the only thing that matters. It's worth playing every dreg out there if it means not ending up in the situation the Big East teams find themselves.

Have fun playing out your string of years against the Villanovas and Seton Halls of the world though. It's literally all you have.

 

[Windsorlocks]

I don't care so much about the selling the name, but we should have kept the records.

This I have a real hard time understanding. The AAC has three teams from the BE at it's height. The present BE has 5 of the 8 teams that were original/charter members, Nova having joined in year two. How do all the southern teams in the AAC really plug into or relate to ANY of the history/records of the old BE?? Tulane and Tulsa have been singled out at times. Does their bb history include being in a league that sent 3 teams to the Final Four years ago? Is that really a part of their league, the AAC's record? Maybe you have a point, but, in terms of why the BE was formed in the first place, in 1979, it was an Eastern bb centric league. It just seems more logical, since the AAC has exactly one charter member of the old 7-9 team Eastern BE, and the present BE has 5 of those charter schools, that the records are better archived, as it were, with the present BE. Like it or not, the present BE is the latest incarnation of what Gavitt intended, and created, in 1979. It's one history, beginning with the league's creation in 1979. The present BE continued that league in a configuration much closer to what it was in 1979 then what the AAC is today.

 

[7774]

Like it or not, the present BE is the latest incarnation of what Gavitt intended, and created, in 1979. It's one history, beginning with the league's creation in 1979. The present BE continued that league in a configuration much closer to what it was in 1979 then what the AAC is today.

You get that, based upon actual facts, none of this is true right?

 

[BigEast]

I enjoy these responses the most. Nothing says "I'm too dumb or ignorant to understand the end game of conference realignment" more than responses like this. Playing Tulsa and Tulane is great. Being in this conference is the only thing between us and athletic irrelevance 40 years from now, which is the only thing that matters. It's worth playing every dreg out there if it means not ending up in the situation the Big East teams find themselves.

Have fun playing out your string of years against the Villanovas and Seton Halls of the world though. It's literally all you have.

Hey maybe you'll be right. Maybe in 10 years the American will be history and you'll be in a wonderful conference. I can't speak to the future, I can only speak to where we all are today. What I do know is UCONN's been screwed by all of this where we sit today, and it's too bad as it's a great basketball program. It shouldn't be playing in gyms in Texas and Louisiana in front of nobody.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

Like it or not, the present BE is the latest incarnation of what Gavitt intended, and created, in 1979. It's one history, beginning with the league's creation in 1979. The present BE continued that league in a configuration much closer to what it was in 1979 then what the AAC is today.

You could be correct (but I can easily debate that Gavitt's vision was to have a power conference, not one loaded with schools that do little once March rolls around) but the current BE is not much closer to being the BE (when it really was the BE) than the Southern Conference with Samford, Wofford and Mercer is to the Southern Conference with had Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia, Auburn & LSU.

 

[7774]

Hey maybe you'll be right. Maybe in 10 years the American will be history and you'll be in a wonderful conference. I can't speak to the future, I can only speak to where we all are today. What I do know is UCONN's been screwed by all of this where we sit today, and it's too bad as it's a great basketball program. It shouldn't be playing in gyms in Texas and Louisiana in front of nobody.

Actually we should be playing in gyms in Texas and Louisiana in front of nobody, because it's the only path we have available to us right now that gives us a chance at future athletic relevance at the highest level.

 

[joober jones]

I always know I've done well when I get to the "but we won a championship" response.

Four to be exact. I tell you, it really sucks to have that happen. I cry myself to sleep every night because I know we have those 4 championship banners hoisted at home.

 

[CL82]

That's really what you think? The conference with Providence, SJU, Seton Hall, Georgetown, and Nova and the Big East name isn't the original but the conference with UCONN and a dozen random teams is?

He should because it is correct. The "Little" East is a new conference bought the rights to the Big East name.

 

[CL82]

I don't care so much about the selling the name, but we should have kept the records.

We did "keep the records." The "Little" East records, such as they are, begin in 2013.

 

[CL82]

I always know I've done well when I get to the "but we won a championship" response.

A championship? You must think you are trolling the Syracuse board. Of course there you'd need to put an asterisk after the word championship.

 

[Windsorlocks]

This article mis worded the history as well:

http://collegebasketball.ap.org/article/big-east-looks-beast-ncaa-tournament-tell-tale

"Few people represent the glory days of the 1980s Big East more than Chris Mullin, the first-year coach at St. John's. The Big East had nine teams when Mullin, Georgetown's Patrick Ewing and Villanova's Ed Pinckney were the league's biggest stars. It had 15 in 2012-13, the season before it was reconfigured.

"It got to a point where there were so many teams, I didn't know who was in the conference," Mullin said.

When the conference was revamped, eight football-playing schools departed and the seven schools whose No. 1 sport is basketball were joined by like-minded Butler, Creighton and Xavier.

"I really like the way it's set up now," Mullin said. "I like the fact that you play each other home and away. I think that will develop real rivalries. I think given time, it'll be what (Big East founder) Dave Gavitt created."

---------------------------------

But it does support the point I was making. That it's closer in spirit to what Gavitt envisioned from day one of the BE. The reason I do not diss the present BE is because they are all bb schools trying to make it in a landscape that was taken over by football. And I am a fan of bb in the East, specifically the Northeast. If the BE had never grown from the 9 school all Eastern league it was when it sent 3 teams to the Final Four, I'd be happy as the proverbial pig in slop. I wish it had never grown past that small, solid core of good Eastern bb programs. And not only do I wish this new BE well, I hope they get over the tourney stumbling block that has been their failing up to this point. And I hope that because they are basically flipping off the P5 conferences and football in general. It's a bb centric league in a landscape that insists bb is going to play second fiddle, and that's that. And I make no secret of the fact that I would prefer to see our school in that league for bb. I enjoyed those rivalries much better. I could attend road games far easier. Villanova, Georgetown, St. John's, are much better rivalries then most of the schools we play now. We'll get to the dance regardless of which league we're in, but if that league can ever advance some of it's teams, that's really all it needs at this point. They have the best record this year against their OOC top 25 teams of any other league.

The did get a huge boost taking that name with them. Far better then if they had created a new name for their conferences. That's fine with me. They're bb centric schools. They want to survive in the present landscape. They have done so. But they do have to prove in March that they can do in the postseason what they do in their OOC. To each their own, we're all entitled. If folks here are hoping against hope that the BE folds, so be it. But, as far as I'm concerned, football can pound salt. And if enough parents decide they don't want their kids having cognitive problems as adults, maybe it's football that will recede in popularity. I won't hold my breath of course; it's very unlikely. But I'm rooting for a bb centric league to survive and eventually thrive.