This season will be the last time a "true" Big East Tournament tip-off goes on. |
All the Madison Square Garden memories. All the ridiculous shots that Gerry McNamara made. All the points Levance Fields scored in the last five minutes. All the times you thought you were watching the NCAA Tournament, when you were really watching the Big East Tournament. All the ankles Kemba Walker broke. All those good times will be gone after this season, thanks to a greedy move by our friends in the Athletic Director's office over in Syracuse and Pittsburgh.
But, we have one more exciting and possibly even poetic chapter to finish this year in the Book of Big East Basketball. One more opportunity to watch Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Connecticut and Villanova battle it out for East Coast supremacy. The bruising play and phenomenal athletes won't disappear overnight. But losing the likes of 'Cuse and Pitt zaps two major talent sources for the conference. Syracuse and Pitt recruit intensely from the New York Metropolitan area, and I'm just not sure you're going to generate that same interest from NYC once they depart to the ACC. Hopefully teams like Louisville and Villanova can pick up the slack in recruiting, and potentially save the Big East. But it's highly doubtful. 'Cuse and Pitt are just too prestigious and just too powerful to be thrown by the wayside. Folks, I hate to say it, but this is the last "true" season of Big East basketball. The last time we see 8 teams in the top 25. The last time we see ten teams make the NCAA tournament. The last time we get elite college basketball in the garden. Every. Single. Day.
Let's not get tied up in the 2012-'13 season, let's celebrate what we have left. Alex Oriakhi, Hollis Thompson, Darius Johnson-Odom, Ashton Gibbs and Scoop Jardine are all back. Talent is still bleeding out of every corner of this conference, and we need to drink in every last drop. These kids are going to go at it probably even more intensely than usual. So every game is a must-watch. I don't care if Depaul and Providence are going at it(well maybe that's a stretch) every game needs to be watched. Seemingly every game in the Big East regular season is a "big game." That's something you can't say about any other conferences. There are no cake walks in the Big East and that is what makes the Big East regular season and tournament the most popular in all of college basketball. With the recent emergence of St. John's, a regular in MSG, the Big East has become even more popular. Thanks in large part by the addition of Queens' finest fan base. Bruising play both on the offensive and defensive end mimics the hard-nose residents of the Northeast. They greatly appreciate the blue-collar balling that is a signature of college basketball's best conference. One more season will able to put a wonderful, but unfortunate nail in the Big East coffin. Put simply, if you have any slight affection toward the Big East, this season will be so very meaningful to you.
The Big East Tournament will be like a funeral for that friend everyone loves. There will be no mourning, only a huge celebration of 32 years of greatness.
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