From Big Envy to Big Bore : Somewhere Along the Way, Big East Basketball Took a Very Wrong Turn

Soon after the announcement that the Big East Conference would return to conventional college basketball rules and abandon its six-foul experiment, a letter arrived at the ESPN studios in Bristol. It was from the Big Eight Conference in Kansas City, Mo.

The Big Eight office asked, “Does this mean people will actually see the start of our games next season?”

Those folks in the Big Eight sure have a sense of humor, don’t they? But they weren’t laughing in Lawrence, Kan., or Lincoln, Neb., or anywhere else last season. After eagerly moving into the middle slot on ESPN’s “Big Monday” schedule, the Big Eight lost some of its enthusiasm for the exposure when the Big East’s hack-and-hold defensive struggles routinely dragged on, forcing the network to join Big Eight games in progress.

“And now we join Ron Franklin and Clark Kellogg in Norman, where Oklahoma leads Oklahoma State 25-24 with just over 11 minutes left in the first half. Tell us what we’ve missed guys.”

The Big Eight, enjoying its finest season, should have been the featured performer on the Monday night stage last season. But the warmup act was putting viewers to sleep with free-throw shooting contests that lasted 2 1/2 hours. “Pass the No Doz, honey. And while you’re at it, hand me the remote control. We can watch ‘Murphy Brown’ and still flip back to see the end of the game.”

Not long ago, the Big East was the Big Envy of college basketball. No other conference accomplished so much so quickly. Back-to-back national championships in 1984 and 1985 (Georgetown and Villanova). Three Final Four teams in 1985. Two more Final Four teams in 1987. Six different Big East schools advancing to the Final Four in eight seasons.

The future looked so bright, the Big East had to wear shades.

Now Big East bashing is spreading from coast to coast. The conference has an identity crisis and the publicity has produced some negative appellations. Big Least. Big Bore. Big Bust. You’d have to visit a grade school playground to hear more name-calling.

The bashing goes well beyond six fouls and drawn-out games. A list of complaints has been piling up on the Big East’s doorstep:

-- No Big East team has gone to the Final Four since Seton Hall in 1989.

-- Last season, only one team -- Seton Hall -- made it to the NCAA sweet 16.

-- Television ratings are down. Of the five major conferences televised by ESPN (Big Ten, Atlantic Coast, Big Eight, Southeastern and Big East), the Big East had the lowest ratings last season.

-- Recruiting is making a comeback, but other conferences do better.

-- Rollie Massimino and Lou Carnesecca, two nationally prominent coaches, have left Villanova and St. John’s. Massimino packed his bags for UNLV. Carnesecca retired. Their replacements, Steve Lappas and Brian Mahoney, aren’t exactly household names.

-- Syracuse, found guilty of numerous rules violations, has been placed on NCAA probation and is ineligible for postseason play for one season.

The conference is having a tough time settling into the ‘90s. But Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese denies the conference is in decline.

“In the ‘80s, we set such an incredible standard,” said Tranghese, who succeeded Dave Gavitt as commissioner in June 1990. “That is an unrealistic standard to be judged by. But if that’s the standard, then I accept it. When you get there, I think the praise usually goes beyond what you deserve. And when you’re not there, the criticism probably goes beyond what you deserve.”

Big East coaches are heavily into denial these days. The coaches control the games, so any criticism of the conference reflects on them. UConn Coach Jim Calhoun says it’s “crazy to defend yourself when you are good.” Seton Hall Coach P.J. Carlesimo says the league is better than ever and criticism from other conferences is “just jealousy.”

In one regard, the conference is better than ever. From top to bottom, it is more competitive. But balance is part of the problem.

“It’s going to hurt them again,” said ESPN analyst Dick Vitale, “because they’re going to beat each other up. Then, at the end, they won’t have any teams in the top three or four in the nation. That’s unfortunate. That’s what the media -- and yours truly -- wants to talk about. Always talking about the heavyweight. But the word ‘conference’ means a group of clubs. And I think they’ve got a tremendous conference.”

How did the Big East get in this mess? How will it get out? Four theories help explain the story.

THEORY NO. 1: FOLLOW THE LEADER

In a new conference such as the Big East (formed in 1979), there must be a model for success. Georgetown quickly became that model by advancing to the Final Four three times in four seasons and winning the national title in 1984.

The other schools in the conference didn’t have Patrick Ewing to play center, so they figured the best way to keep up was to emulate coach John Thompson’s pressure defense. In those early seasons, everyone talked about how dirty the Hoyas were as they pushed and pressed from baseline to baseline. That talk has ceased, not because Georgetown has changed its game, but because clutching and pushing have been universally adopted in the conference.

Villanova and St. John’s, who joined Georgetown in the 1985 Final Four, mixed good defense with predictable, walk-the-ball-up, halfcourt offenses. No run-and-gun for these Big East schools.

“If I was a young coach,” Calhoun said, “and I came in the league, I’d say, ‘Unless I can get Billy Owens and all those great players, I might as well be like (other teams).’ Three of the four top coaches in the league played great defense.”

Carlesimo didn’t enter the league as a great defensive coach, but he soon learned what it took to survive. Now the Pirates wear opponents down with strength and defense. They are favored to win the Big East this season.

Syracuse has resisted the trend, but Coach Jim Boeheim can recruit athletes such as Owens and Derrick Coleman because of the Carrier Dome. UConn, under Calhoun, has evolved into an up-tempo team that presses and uses athletic ability to its advantage.

But the image stays with the league.

“It’s tough to score in our league,” Boeheim said. “It’s not because we can’t score or play offense. We can. We played Florida State last year and scored 89 points. We can score points. But the league is so defensive oriented that it’s a battle.”

Pittsburgh led the Big East in field-goal percentage last season at 45.3. The top shooting team in conference play hasn’t shot above 50 percent since Syracuse (51.3) in 1988-89. UConn, not exactly known for its offense, led the Big East in scoring last season with a 77.5 points per game average.

“I believe it’s hard to run set offenses in this league,” said Boston College Coach Jim O’Brien. “I think the teams that are most successful have players who can get stuff on their own and break the defense down. Everybody scouts the hell out of each other. It’s the teams that can improvise and go to options that are the better teams.”

The departure of Massimino and Carnesecca could help the Big East break out of that mold. Lappas has promised a free-lance, motion offense at Villanova. Mahoney is hoping St. John’s can press and trap, creating points the way UConn has in recent seasons.

And the six-foul rule is gone. The rule was a response to the league’s physical style, a solution for keeping the best players in the game. If those players can adjust and stay out of foul trouble, there could be more offense this season.

“I think you’re going to see a little more scoring because of it,” said Pitt Coach Paul Evans. “To me, there’s more strategy involved, more zones involved. That might lead to better shooting. I think it’s going to be good for the league.”

THEORY NO. 2: VINTAGE 1985

“I think when it’s all said and done, where you end up in the final poll and what you do in the NCAA is the barometer you are measured by,” Carlesimo said when told the Pirates had been picked by coaches to win the Big East. “We need to get into the NCAA and do some damage in the NCAA.”

Though Carlesimo says that now, coaches hate the idea of so much emphasis being placed on the NCAA Tournament. That’s especially true in the Big East. And you can blame the ghosts of 1985.

No conference had sent three teams to the Final Four before. It may never be done again. But, after three Final Fours without a Big East team, people are trying to figure out what has happened.

“Let people do that,” Thompson said. “I don’t think that’s relevant at all. If you looked at UCLA when they were winning, the Pac-10 would have been great. But it was UCLA that was great at the time. Teams are going to fluctuate. Sometimes they won’t be as good. I don’t think that’s necessarily indicative of a decline in the league.”

The Big East sent five teams to the NCAA Tournament last season and won five games. But Seton Hall was the only team to win two.

“There wasn’t a conference in the ‘80s that (made the Final Four) every year,” Tranghese said. “The ACC didn’t. The Big Ten didn’t. The ACC went a long time without putting a team in the Final Four. I never heard they were falling apart.”

The ACC missed only two Final Fours (1985 and ‘87) in that decade. Since 1960, there have been only four Final Fours without an ACC or Big Ten team. Since 1972, the ACC has missed only four Final Fours, and 1975 and ’76 were the only consecutive seasons the ACC missed.

UConn, which lost to Duke in overtime in the 1990 East Regional final, came closest of any Big East team to reaching the Final Four in the past three seasons. But the Huskies weren’t a dominant team that season. They shared the Big East regular season title with Syracuse.

“The thing that has happened is that every team is better,” Evans said. “In the past, you had Georgetown, Syracuse and maybe St. John’s who could beat up on everybody. They were going to stay in the Top 10 all year long and they were going to go into the tournament with a lot of confidence. Now, no team gets an abundance of confidence because every night out there’s a war. You can get beat by anybody.”

And Big East players had to adjust to playing with five fouls in the NCAA Tournament the past three seasons. The players don’t deny that foul trouble has been a problem in the tournament.

“The referees from other conferences have heard and read about the Big East,” said Seton Hall senior forward Jerry Walker. “They’re ready to call fouls on us. They know it’s a tough league, so they call fouls even if they aren’t fouls.”

Vitale said he thinks the Big East will be glad it got rid of the six-foul rule.

“You can’t operate on another set of rules,” Vitale said. “That’s almost like the designated hitter in baseball. One league has it. Another league doesn’t.”

THEORY NO. 3: SATURATION POINT

The Big East, with its big media markets, was built for television. The Big East and ESPN grew up together and the conference turned that exposure into an enormous recruiting advantage.

That advantage doesn’t exist today. Other conferences quickly caught on and now have their own packages. There are plenty of choices for viewers. And based on declining ratings, viewers are turning off the Big East.

“Ratings went down nationally,” Tranghese said. “I don’t see it as a league problem.”

Maybe he should. Big East ratings on ESPN hit an all-time low last season, and the conference ranked behind the Big Ten, ACC, Big Eight and SEC. The Big East’s drop from a 2.6 rating in 1989-90 to 1.5 in 1991-92 translates into 676,500 fewer TV sets. One rating point equals 615,000 cable TV households.

“The Big East has dropped more than other conferences have dropped in the last two years,” said ESPN Communications Director Mike Soltys. “There’s no scientific way to look at it. But you can bring an educated opinion to it and say Patrick Ewing isn’t in the league or Georgetown isn’t No. 1.

“There are a lot of theories. But when it comes down to it, you have to have the marquee players and top 10 teams.”

It’s sort of a Catch-22 thing for the Big East.

“It makes (recruiting) a little more difficult,” Evans said. “It used to be if you recruited against a UMass or some other Atlantic 10 school, there was no decision because the kid was never going to be seen on TV. Now all those schools are on TV four, five or six times a year.”

THEORY NO. 4: COUNTING ON OTHELLA

Freshman center Othella Harrington hasn’t played a regular season game at Georgetown, but already he is considered something of a savior for the Big East.

Harrington, from Jackson, Miss., was the top-ranked recruit in the nation last year. And the Big East got him. Landing a player such as Harrington or John Wallace (Syracuse) or Donyell Marshall (UConn) is a victory for the league these days.

The Big East has found it increasingly difficult to attract top recruits. In 1988, the Big East got 10 of the top 50 players ranked by recruiting expert Bob Gibbons’ All Star Sports Publications. That number dropped to seven in 1989, five in 1990 and four in 1991. It was up to five this year.

“Certain schools have done well, like Georgetown, UConn and Syracuse,” Gibbons said. “But as a league, (the Big East) just doesn’t seem to be gaining the momentum that you might think with the number of kids in the Eastern area that are recruitable by them. They’ve sort of taken a customary spot behind the ACC, Big Ten and SEC.”

The Big East recruits well in other parts of the nation. But Duke’s Christian Laettner (Buffalo, N.Y.) and Bobby Hurley (Jersey City, N.J.) and Kentucky’s Jamal Mashburn (New York) are some of the more prominent players who have slipped out of the Big East’s back yard.

“Coming from New York City, I didn’t think about Kentucky at all,” Mashburn said. “I was thinking Syracuse or North Carolina -- all the big schools you see on TV. A lot of people didn’t expect me to be here.”

But Kentucky Coach Rick Pitino sold Mashburn by telling him “he was the best player in New York and he wasn’t being recognized. Then I told him he should come play for the New York Knicks’ coach.”

Such new forces are working against the Big East. Where things used to come easy, they are now a struggle. Some recruits prefer the cozy, campus arenas that other conferences offer, as opposed to the professional arenas used by the Big East.

And regardless of whether it works, other conferences are using the style-of-play controversy to negatively recruit against Big East teams.

“I asked our coaches, ‘Are we losing players because people are saying that?’ and they laughed at me,” Tranghese said. “When you go to recruit a big man, you say, ‘Do you want to play in some league where there’s no contact or do you want to play in a league where there’s contact? Is the NBA a contact league?”’

If all these things go in cycles, as the Big East coaches insist, then perhaps the conference is due for another good cycle. Perhaps Harrington was the start of several good years for Big East recruiters.

Deep down, that’s what the Big East is hoping. Because ...

“In the final analysis, you’re only as good as your talent will take you,” Gibbons said. “And the Big East just has not kept pace with the ACC, the Big Ten or the SEC.”