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."
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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.