The Big East Tournament made guys like Gerry McNamara, but it is no longer. |
There was one college basketball tournament that I, and a large contingent of the East Coast, waited for all year, every year. That tournament wasn't the NCAA Tournament and had nothing to do with Duke, North Carolina, Michigan State or Kansas. It was the one tournament that brought energy, toughness, swagger and unmatched greatness into one 16-team battle in the world's most famous arena Madison Square Garden. The Garden, so rich with basketball history, was the only place to play D1's best tournament. But all of the sudden, with the departure decisions from Pittsburgh and Syracuse last year it seemed like the integrity of the tournament was flailing. Then a few days ago the whole league collapsed on its head and the Big East tournament, as we knew it, was dead.
Whether it was a football move, a basketball move, a monetary move or some decision for the D1 Catholic schools to form their own super league commissioned by the Pope it doesn't matter, the Big East has perished. Left in its ashes is an serious amount of history, rich basketball history, with some of the greatest players stepping on the Garden hardwood to do battle for what used to be college basketball's best conference. It's sad for any of us who frequented MSG in early March to watch some intense basketball. It's sad for the players who had the fantastic opportunity to showcase their skills, toughness and bravado on the world's biggest stage. It's a sad day for the announcers who put forth some of their finest calls, sending shivers down the TV audience's spines. It's honestly a sad day for basketball in general.
That one week in March was so very meaningful to everyone involved, really the region as whole. Great NBA players were introduced into our lives, some becoming ingrained in the hardwood just like Willis Reed, Walt Frazier and Patrick Ewing before them. There were on-the-court battles you couldn't even script. At times you thought the intensity was going to blow Madison Square Garden to smithereens. It's not even to say that the games were always pretty, but when you exited the tournament whether it was in the first round or as the champs, you needed every single day of rest before the NCAA tournament. So many great Big East teams entered their National tournament so battered and beaten from their conference run that they couldn't live up to the pre-tournament hype. There was nothing like the Big East tournament and they're never will be anything like it again.
Now it sits as a distant memory, and yes while we'll still have it for a few more years with the collapse of the conference not coming until 2015, the tournament will only be a shell of its old self. It can't retain its sentimental value for teams, players and fanbases when they know down the road it will be no more. The games will most certainly still be intense, but I don't expect the same feeling to be there, that same hatred for one another.
For now we just sit and reminisce on the Ray Allen's, Patrick Ewing's, Kemba Walker's and Gerry McNamara's of our day. There will no longer be new memories carved into our basketball games of some teenager or 20-something cutting up the Garden hardwood like he was in the NBA. Tip of the cap to the Big East for all it has given us over the years, but I guess a new chapter of our college basketball fanhood has to begin.
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