The Big East sent two teams to the Final Four last season, but neither national champion Louisville nor Syracuse was at the conference’s media day in Manhattan on Wednesday.
There was no Jim Boeheim or Rick Pitino, no Pittsburgh or Cincinnati or Notre Dame. UConn? Gone.
But the mourning was over.
Jay Wright wasn’t looking around to see who was missing. After the recent instability and uncertainty surrounding the league’s future, the Villanova coach was thrilled with the similarities he saw in the nine other teams in attendance.
“We’re maintaining the history and the tradition, and in a sense you’re reinventing what was originally invented, which was basketball schools,” said Wright. “I’m so much more comfortable going into this season, thinking basketball, thinking the future of basketball. For the last five or six years, personally, it was gut wrenching because I loved the Big East so much. I grew up with it. I felt a responsibility to try to keep it together.”
Split, but still strong, the new basketball-centric Big East features St. John’s, Seton Hall, Georgetown, Villanova, Marquette, Providence and DePaul, joined by newcomers Xavier and Butler, from the Atlantic 10, and Creighton, from the Missouri Valley Conference.
Though certain classic rivalries will inevitably wither, the 10-team league will feature an old-school round-robin schedule with each team playing at each school.
“Georgetown-St. John’s, Georgetown-Syracuse, the rivalry factor didn’t happen overnight,” said Hoyas coach John Thompson III. “It happened through tough, heated contests, through tension, exciting games, difficult losses, terrific wins.
“The [Big East] perception’s changed, but once we start playing games and winning games, that’ll change. We’ve gone from unquestionably the best basketball conference to arguably the best basketball conference. We’re still in the discussion.”
Creighton, which appears the most unnatural fit coming from Nebraska to New York, is one of the biggest reasons why. The Blue Jays have made the NCAA Tournament the past two years and feature senior forward Doug McDermott, a two-time, first-team All-American and the Big East preseason player of the year.
“It’s just nice to have somebody else tell our story, so we don’t have to tell it ourselves,” said Greg McDermott, Doug’s father and coach. “You’re finding out what we already knew. We’re in a basketball town. As you look through the Top 10 in attendance in the country and Creighton jumps out at No. 6, we’re the school that doesn’t look like we fit. It’s really a special place. It’ll be fun for the nation to hear our story.”
Almost as fun as what Doug has imagined playing at the Garden will be like for the first time, against St. John’s and then in the conference tournament.
“That’s what’s just been in the back of my head all offseason, being able to play in the Garden against some of those top teams,” McDermott said. “It’s something I never thought I’d be a part of.”
It’s something no one had envisioned.
But the bold, brave move to eliminate football schools has already found a believer in Fox Sports, which agreed to a 12-year deal worth about $500 million to keep the conference in the national spotlight.
St. John’s coach Steve Lavin said he expects the league to remain as relevant as ever, with the conference annually sending five or six teams to the NCAA Tournament.
The Big East is done thinking about what has changed. So much is still the same.
“We are the Big East,” said Thompson. “We are always going to be the Big East.”
Well, sort of…
“We can redo it, rebottle it, it’s like the Big East 3.0,” new Big East commissioner Val Ackerman told The Post. “I think we can bring together the old and the new, the modern and the past. We’re looking ahead. We look back fondly, but we mostly look ahead.”