Conference realignment, the storm cloud that has lurked over this year’s college basketball and college football seasons, has returned from a brief hibernation with the news that Memphis will join the Big East in 2013.
The Tigers’ move is big news in two ways. It marks the death of Conference USA as a serious conference, and it signals a concerted effort by the Big East to double down on its strength: basketball.
Of course, the Big East has turned to Conference USA members before to plug gaps in its roster. When Boston College, Miami and Virginia Tech left for the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2004 and 2005, Georgetown’s league lured Cincinnati, DePaul, Louisville, Marquette and South Florida away C-USA. At the same time, Charlotte and Saint Louis left C-USA for the Atlantic 10.
In last fall’s recent stage of realignment, when Syracuse and Pittsburgh announced departures for the ACC and West Virginia hopped to the Big 12, the Big East again turned to C-USA and plucked Houston, Central Florida and Southern Methodist.
Those moves, however, were focused on beefing up football, the key revenue driver in college athletics. But even though Memphis carries a Bowl Championship Series football program, it is primarily a basketball school.
As someone who grew up watching Conference USA basketball, the league’s fall from grace is painfully obvious. Between 1995 and 2005, the conference’s basketball tournament was won each year by teams that left in 2005: Cincinnati won three times, Louisville and Charlotte twice each and St. Louis and Marquette once apiece.
Since then, Memphis has won five of six conference tournaments, including four in a row between 2006 and 2009. The Tigers have dominated the league as no other team in the country has done; their run includes a stretch when they went undefeated in C-USA for three seasons in a row, although one season was vacated because of NCAA violations under then-Head Coach John Calipari.
With the departure of Memphis, Conference USA will be significantly diminished, mostly centered in the Deep South and focused almost entirely on football. Alabama-Birmingham and Texas-El Paso will be the only league schools remaining with any meaningful basketball tradition.
But Conference USA’s loss will be the Big East’s gain — and the development also marks a commitment to the basketball-centric model the league adopted when it was founded in 1979.
The founding eight schools — Georgetown, Providence, Villanova, Boston College, Syracuse, St. John’s, Seton Hall and Connecticut — were focused on hoops over the gridiron, a philosophy that is reflected in the conference’s crown jewel: the men’s basketball tournament.
Dave Gavitt, the league’s visionary founder, staged the event at the “World’s Most Famous Arena,” Madison Square Garden, and had it nationally televised on NBC. Of course, the tournament is now an ESPN property, but it still represents the most attractive of all the Championship Week tournaments.
And that prestige comes from the quality of basketball teams in the Big East.
Even teams at the bottom of the league, like DePaul and St. John’s, have proud traditions and relatively new coaches — Oliver Purnell and Steve Lavin, respectively — looking to restore their glory days. At the top, of course, one finds perennial championship contenders like Syracuse and Connecticut.
But the real quality of the conference comes from teams up and down the league that have a national profile, like Georgetown, Louisville, Marquette and Notre Dame. In fact, from year to year, it’s possible for almost any team in the league to make it onto the national stage.
Maintaining that reputation by adding quality teams ensures that the NCAA continues to take the Big East seriously when drawing up the tournament bracket. And having a competitive league ensures that basketball will remain exciting for fans across the conference.
Rick Pitino, Louisville’s head coach and an advocate for Big East expansion, pushed the Big East to add Memphis. He also wants the league to look at including Temple, although reports suggest that Villanova is reluctant to allow another of Philadelphia’s Big Five schools into its league.
That’s shortsighted. Adding Temple would make the Big East even stronger at basketball. The Owls have done very well under Fran Dunphy, and a lift out of the Atlantic 10 would have them playing on a national stage. It’s a win-win for the conference and Temple.
But even if Temple’s bid is scuttled, the Big East has probably made the best it could of realignment. With Syracuse and Pittsburgh out, League Commissioner John Marinatto had to scramble to replace them with football schools. He did that. By adding Memphis, he’s taking a key step toward making sure Big East basketball remains preeminent.
