Marinatto said in a telephone interview that he planned to hold Syracuse and Pittsburgh to their 27-month contractual exit obligations, meaning that they would not be able to leave the Big East until June 2014.Marinatto also echoed the disappointment of his peers around the Big East that A.C.C. officials like Commissioner John Swofford and Boston College Athletic Director Gene DeFilippo had openly speculated about playing the league’s postseason basketball tournament in Madison Square Garden. The Big East holds a contract with the Garden for its basketball tournament through 2016 and has played the tournament there since 1983.
“We have a track record of coming out stronger than we did before,” Marinatto said, referring the A.C.C.’s raid of three Big East teams in 2003. “We may even hold the opening round of our basketball tournament in Greensboro,” a frequent site of the A.C.C. tournament, he said in jest.With the departure of Syracuse and Pitt, the Big East is down to 7 teams in football and 15 in basketball, including Texas Christian, which arrives next year.
The conference’s next move will be determined only once the murky situation in the Big 12 sorts itself out. If Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech head to the Pacific-12, as they appear to be leaning, it will leave the Big East with some potential new members. That group could include Kansas, Kansas State, Baylor, Iowa State and possibly Missouri.Marinatto would not comment specifically on the Big 12, but did say that “we’ve had a number of schools reach out to us about membership.”He added, “In addition, obviously, the dynamics that are taking place within the college landscape today may create even greater opportunities for the conference to not only survive, but thrive.”
A Big 12 official, who insisted on anonymity because of the delicacy of the topic, confirmed that a number of Big 12 universities had been in touch with the Big East about membership.The Big East’s two most critical advantages will be its basketball tournament and its Bowl Championship Series bid. The basketball tournament gives the league significant presence in New York and enough television programming to dominate ESPN for a week in March.
Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick of Notre Dame, which is a Big East member in basketball and many other sports, said those core assets should be enough to hold the league together.“Obviously, when you lose some members, you have some work to do,” he said. “When you start asking yourself, what are the core assets, the Big East is in pretty good shape.”Swarbrick acknowledged that the public courting of other leagues by some member universities was not positive for the Big East. He did not specifically mention Connecticut and Rutgers, who have made it known that they are trying to find a new home.
Marinatto said he felt there would be a strong group of members in the league in the future. “We may look different, but we will be better,” he said.Marinatto acknowledged that he had been criticized in the news media since the departure of Pitt and Syracuse. His only response was, “It’s not about me.”Mike Tranghese, a former Big East commissioner, defended Marinatto, saying there was nothing he could have done to prevent the departure of Pitt and Syracuse. The Orange nearly left in 2003 until Virginia politics led the A.C.C. to take Virginia Tech.
Marinatto said he held separate conference calls on Sunday with the presidents of the Big East’s football and basketball members. He said that there was a unity among the presidents and that there was no momentum toward the league’s football and basketball members breaking apart.“Both groups are focused on maintaining the current structure of the conference and moving forward,” he said.
Tranghese was far more vocal in his displeasure with Swofford’s and DeFilippo’s mentioning playing in the Garden, especially because the comments came immediately after the death of Dave Gavitt, the Big East’s founder.“I find it very disrespectful, and I’m offended by it,” Tranghese said. “It hurts me beyond disbelief. Dave helped both John and Gene through their years.”He added about the notion of the A.C.C. tournament in New York, “I can sure tell you that I won’t be there watching it.”
No comments:
Post a Comment