by redmen9194 » Mon Dec 10, 2018 9:45 am
The thing that makes the Big East different from everyone else is the same thing that made us different in the early years. We have an identity. We started as a group of northeastern college basketball programs known for coaches with character, an urban edge, very physical play and playing our tournament in a place where no one else did, every year - MSG. With the establishment of football and massive expansion that took place we lost that identity to an extent because it was not us against them. It became us against us against them. With the latest formation of the league, we have an identity again that separates us from the rest. We are a basketball conference. Basketball is what we do. No football to muck up our primary sport. We are Eastern and Mid-Western. A marriage of two great basketball regions. We are private institutions, mostly Catholic, with shared values across the board. We play our tournament at the Garden, every year, same week as we have for the last 35 years. And part of that identity is also being on Fox rather than ESPN. We are ten schools - a tight fist. The other leagues no longer have an identity. The ACC is no longer a Tobacco Road southern league of like institutions. The Big Ten was a Mid-West League - but their efforts to get into New York shows their want to be something they are not. We do not need to add any schools at all - not one. Remember how there was no way we were going to keep the Garden without Pitt, UConn and Cuse? Remember how we would get a TV contract that would pay less than the A-10 and have our games played at 3:00 a.m. on a Thursday morning? Remember how small Catholic schools without big time football could no longer complete for a national championship in basketball? Where is Jay Bilas this morning talking about the Big East at MSG? How many articles, tweets, interviews, etc., has he done where he said the ACC will be at the Garden because it's where they belong? Apparently the Garden doesn't think so. We are all good folks.