Sports

There for the start, Raftery ready to call end of Big East era

Bill Raftery coached Seton Hall in the inaugural Big East Tournament at the Providence Civic Center. It was a seven-team tournament and Georgetown wound up winning it all.

Thirty-three years later, Raftery will be at the broadcast table for the end of an era as the Big East will see many of its prominent members depart and the Catholic 7 moves away from the football-dominated schools.

“Jay [Bilas], Sean [McDonough] and I were talking about having as special a tournament as we could have next week,” Raftery said. “I think when it’s over, we will feel the impact. This could be one of the best Big East tournaments ever. That’s the kind of attitude we’re taking into it and I think that will turn out to be reality.

“It was so meaningful for so many years, seeing it go from zero to being one of the top conferences, now to see its demise, it’s pretty tough, you know?”

West Virginia has already departed for the Big 12, Syracuse and Pittsburgh are ACC bound next season, with Notre Dame a year behind, Rutgers is going to the Big Ten and UConn has made it clear the Huskies are also goners at the first opportunity. Instead of waiting for that and for football to continue wreaking havoc, the so-called basketball schools — St. John’s, Seton Hall, Marquette, Providence, Villanova, Georgetown and DePaul — opted to form their own conference and will add Xavier, Butler and, likely, Creighton.

Some of the great memories Raftery has from the tournament involve those schools, and some of those memories from schools that won’t be at the Garden next year.

“St. John’s and Georgetown with Looie Carnesecca in his sweater and John Thompson in his sweater, that would be my No. 1 memory,” Raftery said of the period between 1982-’88 when the Hoyas won four Big East crowns and the Johnnies took home two.

“Then there was the six-overtime game [Syracuse over UConn in 2009] that sort of typified for me how hard it was to win a game in this league.”

UConn is ineligible for the Big East and NCAA tournaments this year, St. John’s is reeling from the suspension of star player D’Angelo Harrison, and a fight with Notre Dame. But Georgetown and Syracuse will enter as contenders, per usual, but contenders that have been playing quite different of late. Georgetown has risen to the top of the conference, while Syracuse has sunk to the middle.

“Otto Porter has become such a big-time player,” Raftery said of the Georgetown star, who had led the Hoyas to 11 straight wins before they fell to Villanova Wednesday. “[D’Vauntes] Smith-Rivera is another kid that’s been impressive and [Markel] Starks has been steady.”

Syracuse will try to steady itself after three straight losses knocked the Orange from their usual spot at the top of the conference.

“I thought about a month ago with [James] Southerland playing they had a chance to win the whole thing. Then he was gone, and they haven’t been the same team since he came back,” Raftery said. “But I would never leave them out of the talk here.”