When the four athletic directors gathered in the Providence Civic Center in May 1979 and agreed to form the Big East Conference, some thought the late Dave Gavitt, the man who had this vision quest for an eastern sports league, had gone too far.
“Dave always felt that schools in the East were losing players to the ACC,’’ league commissioner John Marinatto told The Post. “He said we need to do something.’’
Then Gavitt took it a step further. He said at that initial meeting that the goal was to bring the men’s basketball championship to the Garden. It was such an improbable concept that some thought it bordered on madness.
Mike Tranghese, who would succeed Gavitt as the league’s second commissioner and could be as an impatient as Gavitt was prescient, asked, ‘When?’
“I don’t know,’’ was Gavitt’s response. “But I’ll know when it’s the right time.’’
The moment came on Feb. 2, 1981 — Patrick Ewing committed to Georgetown.
Soon after, Gavitt, aided by the late Dick McGuire, held the last of three meetings with then Garden president Sonny Warbling to seal the deal. Werblin presented Gavitt with a check for $1 million outside the World’s Most Famous Arena.
“[Gavitt] said, ‘We don’t have football,’” Marinatto said. “This will be our bowl game.’’
But would it sell? The league held its first three tournaments in Providence, Syracuse and Hartford — blah, blah and blah. Now it was on Broadway.
When St. John’s beat Boston College, 85-77, on March 13, 1983 in the first Big East title game at the Garden, there wasn’t an empty seat in the house. Thirty years later, the Big East Tournament is the pre-eminent conference championship because it is the perfect marriage of a league and venue.
“Just another example of things most of didn’t see,’’ said Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim. “The league, the Garden, the TV deals, the Hall of Fame for some of us, Dave Gavitt brought us fools along.’’
The Post looks at 30 memorable moments over the last 30 years, moments that almost never came to be if not for Gavitt’s vision.
1983 – No. 3 seed St. John’s upset No. 1 seed Boston College, 85-77, behind 65 points and 17 assists in three games from freshman Chris Mullin, the kid from Brooklyn who stayed home to play for Lou Carnesecca. Having the “home” team win the inaugural was great for the league but had some coaches fretting that the Johnnies always would have an edge.
1984 – The league’s premier rivalry — Georgetown vs. Syracuse — goes nuclear when the Hoyas beat the Orange, 82-71, in OT. As he entered the interview room, Boeheim was so angry that G’town forward Michael Graham hadn’t been ejected for a technical foul, he tossed a chair. “A chair got in my way and tried to take a charge,’’ Boeheim quipped.
1985 – The Hoyas and Orange meet again, this time in the semifinals. Brooklyn legend Dwayne “Pearl” Washington elbows Patrick Ewing. Ewing responds by throwing sweeping hook that just misses. “I closed my eyes,’’ Marinatto said. “And when I opened them Pearl was still standing so I thought, ‘Patrick must have missed.’’’ Hoyas prevailed on all scorecards, 74-65.
1986 – This time it’s the Johnnies and the Orange in the finals. Trailing by one, Pearl is streaking to the basket, rising for a last-second layup when Walter “The Truth” Berry came from the other side of the court to swat the shot to preserve a 70-69 St. John’s win. “At the last second, I saw something out of the corner of my eye,’’ Pearl said recently at a Garden event. “I still don’t know how he got there.’’
1987 – Patrick Ewing had graduated and Alonzo Mourning had yet to arrive. But a silky smooth forward named Reggie Williams led the Hoyas to the title, scoring 71 points in three games. The team was dubbed “Reggie and the Miracles.”
1988 – Syracuse had gotten to the championship game in the Garden three times and come away empty. So Boeheim call on a general — Sherman “The General” Douglas. He had 25 assists in three games. “He willed good things to happen.’’ Instead of kicking a chair, Boeheim cut down the nets in the Garden for the first time.
1989 – Hoya Paranoia II. With Mourning in the middle, the Hoyas again are the beasts of the East. But it was a relentless guard that stole the show. Charles Smith tallied 66 points and handed out 20 assists.
1990 – Connecticut had never made it to the semifinals of the tournament, no less the title game, but when Jim Calhoun convinced in-state star Chris Smith to stay home in 1988, the beginning of a basketball power was born. “There is something special about that place, and to hold the MVP trophy was definitely the best highlight of my career at UConn,” Smith said.
1991 – Lightning isn’t supposed to strike twice, unless, of course, you’re former Seton Hall guard Oliver Taylor. In a 70-69 win over Pitt in the quarterfinals, Taylor, on a play designed for Terry Dehere, split the defense and scooped in a last-second layup. The next night his last-second turnaround jumper from the foul line beat Villanova, 74-72.
1992 – He’s back, again! How dominating was Mourning by his junior season? He became the first player on a team that didn’t win the tourney to win MVP — the Hoyas lost the title game to Syracuse, 56-54. Mourning averaged 25 points, 7.0 rebounds and 3.3 blocks. But Orange playmaker Lawrence Moten, who never had to be told to shoot, played some defense of his own with 12 boards and six blocks.
1993 – Top-seeded Seton Hall never was threatened, but the tournament was. A late blizzard dumped so much snow on the Garden that the roof began to leak. Play was halted in the first half of the Syracuse-St. John’s semifinal. Ball boys were instructed to run onto the court during play if the ball was on the other end of the spot where water was landing.
1994 – Michael Smith’s nickname, The Animal, was fitting. The Providence power forward went after every rebound like, well, an animal. The first player to win three straight league rebounding titles, Smith, who had 36 rebounds in three games, and Eric Murdock gave the Friars as good an inside-out combo as the league has known.
1995 – Allen Iverson was a much-talked-about freshman at Georgetown. Ray Allen was emerging as the arguably the best player to ever don a Connecticut jersey. But it was Villanova’s Kerry Kittles who stole the tournament by scoring 56 points in the semis and finals and established himself as a first-round NBA pick.
1996 – It was a showdown between two of the best guards that ever played college basketball — UConn’s Allen vs. Georgetown’s Iverson. Allen had a lousy shooting game (5-for-20) but the only shot he converted was a one-handed fling with 13.6 seconds left that hit the front of the rim, the backboard and went in.
1997 – St. John’s Scoonie Penn, who later would transfer to Ohio State and break the Red Storm’s hearts in the 1999 NCAA Tournament, shredded his way through Big East defenses, scoring 41 points with 15 assists.
1998 – Khalid El-Amin, with his powerful and willful drives to the basket, dagger-in-the-heart 3’s and Broadway personality, led the Huskies with 47 points and 10 assists. El-Amin was so personable he appeared on David Letterman.
1999 – This would become UConn’s first national championship team, and Rip Hamilton would emerge as a superstar. But it was Kevin Freeman, a rugged, do-the-dirty-work, power forward from Paterson, N.J., who led the defensive-minded Huskies to the Big east title with an 82-63 win over St. John’s. He had 52 points and 14 boards in three games.
2000 – The rivalry between St. John’s and UConn had gotten white-hot. Mike Jarvis, the former coach at Boston University, and Calhoun, the former coach at Northeastern, had history. Jarvis’s crew prevailed, 80-70, and Bootsy Thorton was the tourney MVP, hitting 21 of 41 shots.
2001 – Boston College guard Troy Bell, 6-foot-1, 180 pounds, was told his entire life that he was too small and too skinny. No one had much to say after he had 58 points, 12 rebounds, 10 steals and eight assists in leading the Eagles to a title.
2002 – It was the first Big East Tournament after 9/11 attacks, and the new world order was in place. Police with bomb-sniffing dogs roamed the Garden. But whatever tension was broken at tipoff for the first game. Seated on the bench for each game as honorary coaches were first responders from NYFD, NYPD, Port Authority and MTA police. Caron Butler led UConn, which beat Pitt 74-65 in double-overtime in the final.
2003 – College basketball was changing. Elite big men weren’t staying for four years, if they even enrolled in college. They game was becoming more about wing players. Pittsburgh’s Julius Page was a do-everything swingman. But most of all, he was meat-grinder defender, which is how Pitt basketball rose to the top of the Big East. Pitt held three foes to less than 54 points per game.
2004 – Calhoun had an issue with Ben Gordon when he first arrived at UConn. The coach wanted his guard from Mount Vernon to shoot more. Calhoun never had to say much when Gordon came to New York. Nicknamed Madison Square Gordon, he scored 81 points in leading UConn to the title.
2005 – A new verb was born — Pittsnogled. Kevin Pittsnogle, West Virginia’s 6-11, 250-pound power forward, could score in the paint or step behind the arc. He was effective but wasn’t necessarily pretty to watch. When he scored, Mountaineer fans said the opponent had been Pittsnogled. But Hakim Warrick and Syracuse were Pittsnogle-proof, winning 68-59 in the title game.
2006 – Syracuse guard Gerry McNamara beat Cincinnati with a running one-handed 3, hit a 3 to send the game against UConn into OT, hit five 3’s in the second half against G’town, and hit the 3 that broke Pitt in the title game.
2007 – Coach John Thompson III led the Hoyas to their first Big East Tournament title since 1989, when his father John Thompson Jr. was coach. “People ask me how often do I speak to my son about basketball,’’ John Thompson Jr. said. “I say, ‘How often does the Hershey family talk about chocolate.’” Sweet.
2008 – Of all the wonderful changes out-going commissioner Tranghese made for the league, moving the tournament finals from Sunday to Saturday, so it could be televised in prime time, was perhaps his finest move. Pitt won behind Sam Young.
2009 – If you ever have 3 hours and 46 minutes to kill, why not watch a rerun of the six overtime quarterfinal game between Syracuse and UConn. The Orange won it 127-117. Does anyone remember the Orange needed OT the next night to beat West Virginia in the semis. Louisville won the title — in regulation. Jonny Flynn became the second player on a losing team to win MVP. There is a website: Sixovertimes.com
2010 – It seemed utterly incongruous after West Virginia beat Georgetown, 60-58, in the final. Da’Sean Butler, a kid from Newark, N.J., standing at midcourt in the World’s Most Famous Arena, hoisting the tournament MVP trophy while “Country Road,” pumped through the building. Take me home.
2011 – “The Lion King” was playing on Broadway. And in the Garden. UConn’s Kemba Walker led the Huskies to five wins and five nights. As if that wasn’t enough, they six more to win the NCAA title.
lenn.robbins@nypost.com