Big East will gain five, move up in basketball

More than four months after members found out the Big East was shrinking, it became much… More than four months after members found out the Big East was shrinking, it became much bigger and much less eastern on Tuesday.

The conference announced that five institutions – Cincinnati, DePaul, Louisville, Marquette and South Florida – have accepted invitations to join the league and will begin conference play in 2005.

The Big East is set to lose Miami and Virginia Tech at the end of the 2003-2004 academic year, along with Boston College, which will likely be leaving after the 2005 school year.

“For the past five months, everyone connected with the Big East has worked creatively and cooperatively to build an even stronger conference,” Pitt Chancellor Mark Nordenberg said in a statement. “We are excited about our new members, the markets we serve, our expanded geographic reach, the high levels of performance we will bring to every sport and the opportunities we will continue to provide our student-athletes.”

“This is a very exciting day in the history of the Big East,” conference commissioner Michael Tranghese said. “We are thrilled to be joined by five great institutions, all of whom exemplify the characteristics of sportsmanship and scholarship that are central to the Big East tradition.”

Cincinnati, Louisville and South Florida will join the Big East in all sports, while Marquette and DePaul will participate in all sports except football. Neither the Golden Eagles nor the Blue Demons have a football team.

With Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College headed to the Atlantic Coast Conference and Temple leaving the conference after the 2004 football season, the Big East will have eight football-playing members. Cincinnati, Louisville and South Florida – along with Connecticut, which will join the conference for football in 2004 – join Pitt, West Virginia, Rutgers and Syracuse in the Big East.

As for basketball, the conference will expand to 16 teams and, arguably, will be the best basketball conference in the nation.

“Where we’ll be going in a couple of years, there’s no denying what we’re going to have basketball-wise,” Pitt men’s basketball head coach Jamie Dixon said about the Big East. “It’s a tremendous accomplishment for our conference to add those teams. We are going to have, by far, the best basketball conference in the country.”

Of the 16 teams that will make up the new Big East, six of them participated in the NCAA Tournament, while five made it to the National Invitation Tournament. Pitt, Notre Dame and UConn all advanced to the Sweet 16, while Syracuse and Marquette advanced to the Final Four in the NCAA Tournament.

The winner of both tournaments came from the Big East – the Orangemen captured the NCAA crown, and St. John’s defeated Georgetown to win the NIT title.

As for football, things are not as promising.

In Miami and Virginia Tech, the Big East is losing teams that have played in three of the last four national championship games. Boston College, while not as prestigious a football program as the Hurricanes or Hokies, has been to a bowl game in each of the last four seasons.

While Cincinnati and Louisville have been to bowl games in recent years, neither is known for having a prestigious football program. South Florida and UConn are both fairly new to the Division I-A football scene.

The Big East will also expand in all of its other sports as well, meaning that Pitt will gain new opponents in all of its other varsity sports.

“We’re very excited about it,” Pitt baseball head coach Joe Jordano said. “In particular, baseball-wise, we are a stronger conference today than [we were] yesterday. The Big East conference does not get the publicity it deserves as a baseball conference, I think, because we’re predominately a northeastern conference.”

Both women’s basketball head coach Agnus Berenato and women’s soccer head coach Sue-Moy Chin agreed that they are looking forward to competing against their new conference opponents.

“This gives us an opportunity to play some different faces that normally would be non-conference,” Berenato said. “We lose a couple of teams that have gone to the [Women’s NCAA] Tournament, but we add teams that have always gone to the tournament. It gives a couple other teams the opportunity to get into the league and take a punch.”

“It expands our geographic region, so it will help us in recruiting,” Chin added. “It adds selling points for us. I’m excited about it.”

Jordano nevertheless admitted that he was sorry to see one of the departing schools go.

“We’re 6-3 against Virginia Tech in the last few years,” he said, “so I’m sad to see them go.”