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Message: [QUOTE="Windsorlocks, post: 2093054, member: 5993"] Of the original 7 BE teams in 1979, 4 are in the NBE, one is in the American. Of the 16 BE teams in 2011-12, 7 are in the NBE, 3 are in the American. The NBE, even with 3 new Midwest teams added, seems much closer in spirit to what Gavitt had in mind in 1979. Would the American really more resemble Gavitt's vision with SMU, Houston, Memphis, Tulsa, and Tulane then the present NBE does? The BE was in a near constant state of flux right up to the Catholic 7 leaving after 2012. Teams were added, such as Villanova in 1980, only one year after its founding in 1979. And teams left. The NBE has 7 of the teams present when the league was at its max size of 16 teams in 2012. Anyway, the above is the reasoning I use when I conclude the NBE was really the logical choice to keep the conference name Big East. When you look at how the BIg East evolved, beginning with a 7 team league in 1979, the NBE seems to me to be the latest incarnation of that league, and it seems like that far more then the American conference does. I don't see the NBE as having unfairly inherited the conference name at all. I see it as the most logical choice to have inherited the conference name. [/QUOTE]