BACK FOR MORE: St. John’s Marco Bourgault tries to stop Otto Porter during a recent game against Georgetown. The Red Storm and Hoyas will continue their long-standing rivalry under the Big East banner. (
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The beast is back — sooner than expected.
Sources confirmed to The Post the Catholic 7, which announced in mid-December it was withdrawing from the Big East Conference, will expand to 10 schools, adding Butler, Creighton and Xavier, and begin play next season.
The Catholic 7 also will retain the Big East name, making the reconfigured conference once again the Beast of the East. St. Louis and Dayton will join the Big East for the 2014-2015 season, said additional sources, giving the league an East and West Division.
The new Big East will be a 12-school basketball-centric conference with a heavy presence in urban markets. Based on today’s rankings, the league would have four teams — No. 7 Georgetown, No. 18 St. Louis, No. 20 Butler and No.22 Marquette — in the Top 25.
“No decision has been made yet,’’ Big East commissioner Mike Aresco told The Post last night in a telephone interview. “I’ve heard reports that we’re going to announce something on Tuesday, which just isn’t true.
“We’re talking and we’ll continue to talk. This is a sensitive issue and there’s a lot of moving parts. But all parties have been committed to doing this in an amicable manner and I don’t see any reason why that’s not going to be the case.’’
The Big East was looking for financial compensation to surrender the name. The price tag is unknown, but it became less of a stumbling block as the Catholic 7 zeroed in on a lucrative TV deal with Fox Sports Network.
That deal will bring each school about $3 million annually, or about twice as much as the non-FBS playing schools were making under the current deal. The Big East recently agreed to a $130 million deal over seven years with ESPN that will pay each school about half of what the Catholic 7 will get.
Sources told The Post the Garden is excited about retaining the Big East Conference Tournament. The Catholic 7 is adding three teams next year because the future of Notre Dame still needs to be clarified. It’s likely the Irish would remain in the Big East next season before moving on to the ACC.
The Big East teams that are not aligned with the Catholic 7 — such as Cincinnati, Connecticut and South Florida — are working with marketing experts to develop a new brand name. Aresco will remain the commissioner of that league. The Catholic 7 is working with a search firm to find a commissioner and is seriously exploring moving its league office to New York.
The biggest winner in all this is Butler, which less than five years ago was an obscure member of the Horizon League and will now be a major player in the Big East. The biggest loser is Connecticut, which won three NCAA men’s basketball titles as a member of the Big East only to be left out in the cold world of realignment.