It appears the “Catholic 7” will be allowed to leave the conference formerly known as the Big East after this school year, and the seven schools will start their non-football revolution this fall. According to ESPN.com, they will be doing so with Butler and Xavier, along with one other school (Creighton is apparently the favorite).
This doesn’t really come as any surprise, as Mike Aresco and company would not want to go through next school year knowing seven teams can’t wait to get out. With the schools they will bring in the next few years, the seven also would not want to be there. It would be a pretty awkward situation, to go through another year of all of them together.
Not only are the seven going to get their way, but they are also going to take the “Big East” title with them. I was told a couple months by someone who works for Marquette they were confident that would happen, and it did. Really, Aresco and the Big East had no leverage in the situation.
Even Mike Brey and Rick Pitino, whose programs will be playing in the ACC soon, have said recently they believe the seven schools should take the “Big East” name with them. Brey made the point that the Big East was initially built around the Catholic institutions, and it was those schools that made it the best basketball conference in college athletics. It would only be fitting for Georgetown, St. John’s, Villanova, and company to take the “Big East” brand wherever it is they go.
The television contracts they have been offered are evidence of the current Big East’s inferiority to the seven school’s new conference. The seven will be much better off when they don’t have to deal with football both competitively and financially, the latter of which is a bit of a surprise because of the evident lack of football.
I’m excited for this new conference. There will be 10 teams whose main moneymaking product is men’s basketball, and all but a couple of the programs will be competitive. Those that are not at least have potential for the future based on their head coaches (here’s to Oliver Purnell and Kevin Willard getting things together sometimes soon).
Marquette has been in three conferences in the past 20 years. I would be very surprised if the Golden Eagles call themselves members of more than one conference over the next 20.