NEW YORK — As the bus crept through the city gridlock, even the worldliest among the players stared out from the windows in shock. “It was crazy,’’ Chris Mullin recalled. “The city was crazy.’’ It had been 50 years since Madison Square Garden hosted a No. 1 versus No. 2 basketball game, and New York turned out like only New York can, scalpers collecting $1,200 for $12 tickets and the tabloids treating the match like a heavyweight battle. Which, in a lot of ways, it was. St. John’s had risen to its first No. 1 ranking since 1951 via a knockout punch of its heated Big East rival, Georgetown a month earlier, and brought a 19-game win streak to the rematch. The Hoyas regrouped to rank No. 2, with a 25-2 record of their own. One had Mullin, the other Patrick Ewing. “The game of the year,’’ as Len Berman introduced it on the TV broadcast, and for once it wasn’t hyperbole.
All these years later, the game is mostly recalled for its pregame antics. When John Thompson Jr. unbuttoned his sports jacket to reveal a T-shirt replica of Lou Carnesecca’s ugly sweater, it forever became known as the “sweater game,’’ the rest of its historical importance steamrolled by Georgetown’s 85-69 clobbering win and everything else that happened to the Big East in 1985.
But lost in the maelstrom is a statistic worth remembering: That game drew an 8.0 rating on ESPN, a record at the time for the largest audience on any network cable telecast. ESPN, remember, was an infant just like the Big East, not even available in every home, so the 12 share it drew from the 35 million available homes was huge.
Now standing at a very interesting, and even critical, intersection, with its TV deal negotiation window about to open and its best coach out golfing and grinning his way through retirement, the Big East needs to make like it’s 1985 again. The league captivated the country then because its players were good, its teams recognizable and its games downright nasty. No one will argue that the reconfigured version of the Big East has thrived more than most could have imagined, but also no one will argue that one team has done much of the heavy lifting. Villanova has owned the league for the last 10 years, carrying the Big East’s torch into the national consciousness.
But the architect of Villanova’s rise to prominence, and the man commissioner Val Ackerman says has been her personal sounding board for the last decade, is not. Jay Wright’s retirement leaves the league vulnerable at a pivotal time when TV networks are making like sultans, dishing out billions to football-playing conferences. But there is only so much money to go around.
As the Big East waits in line for its television handout, it needs to make sure it has something to sell. “How strong is your conference? How many top programs do you have?” says William Mao, Octagon’s senior vice president for global media rights consulting. “For the value of media rights, you need games to be competitive, you need the outcomes not to be always assured, and you need people to watch your conference tournament. In order for that to happen, you need someone other than Villanova to be successful.’’
Ackerman likes to say that “rising tides lift all boats.’’ Villanova has been more like a typhoon. Since the Big East’s rebirth in 2013-14, Villanova has:
• Gone 114-29 against its Big East opponents in the regular season
• Gone 17-3 against its Big East opponents in the conference tournament
• Won five of the eight league tournament titles
• Won or shared six regular-season crowns
• Accounted for five of the league’s 10 trips to the Sweet 16 or better. Only one other team (Xavier) has reached a regional semifinal or better more than once.
• Ranked in the Associated Press top 10 for 78 weeks; the next closest Big East school is Xavier, with 30
• And of course, won two national championships
That the league has fared well against its power conference brethren has helped stoke its reputation as a strong conference and ensure the Big East multiple NCAA Tournament bids. This isn’t Gonzaga and the West Coast Conference. But the league has suffered diminishing returns in March, and whether the Big Ten likes it or not, Jim Boeheim has a point; college basketball reputations are built in the postseason. “Yeah, they overshadowed everybody else, but they were that good,’’ says Marquette coach Shaka Smart, who says he learned college basketball cutting Villanova film as an assistant coach at Dayton. “We have a lot of programs that are capable of, on any given night, beating anyone, so our job as a league is to not just get to the NCAA Tournament, but for our teams to play our best basketball in March.’’
Can St. John’s get New York City excited again? (Wendell Cruz / USA Today)
Back in its earliest heyday, the league ran top heavy early, with St. John’s, Syracuse and Georgetown toting much of the load. But everyone else caught up pretty quickly. When previously decrepit Seton Hall played Michigan in the 1989 national championship game, the Pirates became the fifth Big East team to play for a title in the league’s first 10 years. Even during its football bloat era of the 2000s, the league produced multiple national champions (Louisville, UConn, Syracuse) and Final Four participants (those three plus West Virginia, Villanova and Georgetown).
But since the birth of the new Big East only one team not named Villanova — Xavier in 2017 —has reached an Elite Eight.
On the surface, at least, this season reads like well-timed opportunity. For the first time since 2015, the AP preseason poll ranks another Big East team ahead of Villanova. Creighton debuted at ninth (its highest start in program history) and Villanova 16th. And in New York this month, the Big East unveiled its preseason rankings, and for the first time since the beginnings of the new Big East, the Wildcats were neither first nor second; they slid in behind Creighton and Xavier, receiving just one first-place vote.
That’s not necessarily just Kyle Neptune skepticism. Creighton returns five starters, including Ryan Kalkbrenner, the league’s defensive player of the year. The Musketeers bring back four from a team that won an NIT title last year and, more, welcome Sean Miller back to the head-coaching seat. Before the Musketeers joined the Big East, Miller turned the program into a mid-major darling, going to a Sweet 16 and an Elite Eight before leaving for Arizona.
On the other side of the coin, Villanova is without an obvious star (the Wildcats had zero selections on the league’s preseason first team) and will start the season without its two best options, Justin Moore (Achilles’ tendon injury) and Cam Whitmore (thumb). “Changing of the guard, different things happen,’’ Providence coach Ed Cooley says. “So yes, I think it’s a great opportunity; an opportunity for all of us.’’
But can anyone actually seize the opportunity? Creighton rolled all the way to ninth in the country and a No. 3 seed in its first Big East year, riding the supernova of future player of the year Doug McDermott. The Bluejays lost to Baylor in the second round. In 2016-17, they opened the season ranked 22nd and jumped as high as seventh, earning a No. 6 seed. They got knocked out by Rhode Island in the first round.
At media day, the Bluejays enjoyed a steady stream of visitors befitting a league favorite — “usually we sit at this table and talk to each other,’’ Greg McDermott laughed — but the coach conceded that, with the opportunity for his program comes the onus of responsibility for his league. “The fact (Villanova was) so successful, it raised the level of the other teams in this league,’’ he said. “If you’re chasing a team like Villanova, you better do things right. You better work really hard. We’ve knocked on the door before.’’ And then he stopped short of finishing the sentence — that the Bluejays have yet to break it down.
The Big East’s negotiating window opens in February 2024, and between now and then the conference wants to get its ducks in a row to present the best product it can create to entice either Fox, its current broadcast partner, or someone else to bid. Expansion is not out of the question. Ackerman concedes she doesn’t imagine her league will sit at 11 members forever.
The dynamics have shifted, and where once everyone counted media markets — remember when the Big Ten tried to sell Rutgers as New York—- now, thanks to the world shrinking via social media, brands trump everything. Neither Austin, Texas, (38th in market size, according to Nielsen) or Oklahoma City (44th) deliver a lot of eyeballs, but both have heavy name recognition to make them viable additions to the SEC.
But for the Big East, there is really only one option that would quantify as a home run add — and Gonzaga sits 2,500 miles from the Big East’s New York offices. Other schools — Dayton, Saint Louis, Loyola Chicago — would be good, reliable and solid additions, but aren’t headline names.
The twist: The league already has two of the best basketball brands — with, as a bonus, two of the top media markets -— on its roster. “I mean, Georgetown and St. John’s are literally core to the DNA of this conference,’’ Ackerman says. “To have Georgetown and St. John’s
really meaningfully back in the mix would be great.’’
Except consider the list of Villanova’s accomplishments over the last decade and now look at the Red Storm:
• On its third head coach.
• Earned just two NCAA Tournament bids, and never won a tourney game
• Finished above .500 in league play just three times
• Never played for a Big East tournament title
And Georgetown:
• On its second head coach
• Earned just two NCAA Tournament bids and won one tourney game
• Finished above .500 in league play just once, and finished 0-19 last year
• Won one fluky Big East tournament but otherwise has just two league postseason wins
Georgetown has struggled to recapture any of its former Big East glory. (Brad Penner / USA Today)
St. John’s, once, the pride of New York, has since turned into a quagmire, so bad that a prominent alum — billionaire Mike Repole — declared his alma mater a “national embarrassment’’ on talk radio. Attempts to revive the programs via the nostalgia route have failed epically. The Mullin coaching experiment lasted four years, ending after producing a 59-73 record and one First Four loss. The school flailed in finding his replacement, whiffing on Bobby Hurley, Tim Cluess, Ryan Odom and Porter Moser (yes, the Iona, UMBC and Loyola Chicago coaches turned down St. John’s), before landing on Mike Anderson. Despite years of average returns, Anderson insists his vision remains the same as the day he was hired — “to win a national championship. That’s it. That’s the vision.’’
New York remains the dangling carrot everyone in college sports wants to claim. The Big Ten tried to sell Rutgers as a linchpin for the city’s top-ranked media market when it brought the Scarlet Knights into the conference (no), and even moved back its conference tournament so it could play in the Garden. The ACC, too, has tried to stake a claim in the Big Apple, following Syracuse’s boast as “New York’s team,’’ and moving its tourney to Brooklyn.
But when Anderson says, “when St. John’s is good, it’s good for everybody,’’ he’s not wrong. Networks still want New York, and the Red Storm have the most legitimate claim to the city. “Look, I can certainly sell St. John’s as New York’s school a lot easier than Syracuse,’’ says Bob Thomson, the former head of Fox Sports Networks.
If, as experts and insiders seem to indicate, brands trump media markets at the negotiating table, there is no bigger brand for the Big East than Georgetown. “There is still that name association with the Big East. It still resonates,’’ Thomson says. But if the Red Storm have been, per Repole, a national embarrassment, where to rank Georgetown?
Operation Patrick Ewing has gone even worse than the Mullin run at St John’s. Five years ago, when Ewing walked into the Garden for media day, it was like bringing the king back to his kingdom. This month, the coach sat stoically answering questions about a 6-25 overall record and the Hoyas first winless league run in program history. He, of all people, understands his program’s ties to the Big East and more, Georgetown’s importance to the league’s appeal. “Of course I do,’’ he said. “And I definitely take responsibility for our place in this league. We do take ownership of where we need to be as a program and for the Big East in general.’’
Back in the summer of 2011, Cooley walked into his first Big East coaches’ meeting, admittedly a little intimidated at the people he now counted as his peers. “Jim Calhoun, Jim Boeheim, Rick Pitino, Huggy Bear (Bob Huggins),’’ he says. “All of these Hall of Famers.’’
Wright saw the wheels spinning in Cooley’s head and knew exactly what he was thinking. He pulled the new Providence coach aside and shared a message that, all these years later, still resonates with Cooley. “He said, ‘We’re all going to have our chance. If we’re here long enough, we will all have our time.’’ Five years later, Wright had his moment in the sun, winning his first national championship.
The Big East is still waiting for someone else to take a turn.
(Top photo of Creighton’s Arthur Kaluma and Villanova’s Chris Arcidiacono: Tim Nwachukwu / Getty Images)
