How the Big East became a power conference without football

Fans of college sports are very familiar with conference realignment. The process in which teams switch conferences and kill decades of traditions and rivalries in the name of money. The practice of realignment is nothing new, however, as teams switched conferences plenty of times in the late twentieth century.

The most devastating round according to many, is currently taking place. The realignment of 2021 saw an obscene amount of teams switch conferences, and more importantly, killed the PAC 12. However, the PAC 12 is not the first conference to be killed by realignment. Back in 2013, realignment almost killed another conference, the Big East.

The Big East formed all the way back in 1980 with seven founding members: Boston College, Seton Hall, Providence, St. John’s, Syracuse, UConn and Georgetown. These schools made up the basketball conference that still stands today.

In 1991, the conference split between football and non-football members. Teams like Pitt, Miami and Notre Dame would join the conference and help bolster its prestige both on the gridiron and the hardwood.

The Big East would be no stranger to conference realignment, especially in the early half of the 2000s. Miami, Notre Dame and Virginia Tech would leave and schools like West Virginia, Louisville, Marquette and DePaul would come in.

They maintained this football and non-football balance all the way up until the realignment of 2011. That round saw eight teams leave the conference.

All of the football-playing members left. Syracuse, Pitt and Louisville left for the ACC. West Virginia left for the Big 12. Rutgers left for the Big 10. South Florida, UConn and Temple all left for the American Athletic.

The Big East became strictly a basketball league. To offset their losses, Butler, Xavier and Creighton all entered the fold. The Big East was now a 10-team basketball league.

As crazy as it sounds, dropping football may have saved the Big East. They no longer had to sacrifice their basketball to accommodate the football schools. They were able to devote their time and resources to their basketball schools, which ended up paying off in the long run.

Villanova in particular emerged as a national powerhouse under Hall of Fame head coach Jay Wright. The Wildcats won two national championships in the new era of the Big East.

The biggest component of the Big East revival was without a doubt, the return of one of the biggest brands in college hoops. After leaving before the 2013-14 season, UConn won the national championship in their first year in the American Athletic Conference. In their next six seasons, they made the NCAA Tournament one time where they got knocked out in the second round.

They announced in 2020 their intentions to return to the Big East. They returned for the 2020-2021 season and went on to make four straight NCAA Tournaments. Not only that, but they went on to become the first team to win back-to-back National Championships in 17 years. Safe to say their return was best for both the team and the conference.

The Big East currently holds status as the best non-football conference in the country. They went through a lot to earn that title. So many teams coming and going, never truly feeling stable. Thankfully, the Big East has carved out its own spot among the elites of college basketball.

Nate Johns is a first-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email jzn5275@psu.edu.