Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Basketball Warfare

Not sure if the book is out, but saw an article about a book called "BasketBall Warfare". Centers around big east, but apparently talks a lot about the whole thing where the ACC took 3 Big East teams. I'd be much more interested in hearing the behind the scenes things that went on with the ACC side of things, I've never really heard the whole story there.

Football has been the elephant in the Big East living room almost since the Big East began in 1979. It’s the reason why Pittsburgh came into the league in the early ’80s, the reason why Miami and West Virginia, came into the league in the ’90s, and Virginia Tech in 2001. It’s the reason why there’s long been a fundamental split in the conference between the football schools and the basketball schools, one that threatened the Big East’s existence as far back as the early ’80s.

But it was the ACC’s raid on Miami, Boston College, and Syracuse that threatened to slam-dunk the Big East and essentially create two new leagues in the East, one centered around football, one around basketball. One that would not only have disintegrated the Big East as we had come to know it, but severely impact the Atlantic 10, as everyone would have been fighting for a place to land in this basketball version of musical chairs.

“The ACC was going to take three teams and it was panic in the streets,” McNamara says.

Basketball Warfare does an excellent job of putting this into context, within the larger theme of how important football is to this. It’s something that’s often overlooked, especially around here. The Big East is so synonymous with basketball — it began as a strictly basketball conference — to the point that many people think basketball is the engine that drives the conference. Not so.



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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Who would have thought that in the 1st 3 years of the expanded conference, Wake would win the football championship and BC & VT would be fighting for the regular season crown in hoops?

The expansion was all about big $$$. No matter how much we may love hoops, football is where the really big money comes from.

You think we get frustrated with a 12-team hoops schedule, how in the heck does the Big East manage a 16-team schedule?

Ken White said...

You want author rights so you can post some articles?

Brad Wolborsky said...

For one month Football takes a back seat!!