All I can say is wow

[nasdadjr]

So for the first time I watched an ESPN 30 for 30 and it was the Requiem of The Big East. Very very well done documentary. I can say this... I have gained a brand new appreciation for the league that Xavier is now a part of. I knew that Xavier joining the Big East was huge but I really didn't have an appreciation or an understanding of the history and tradition this league has until watching this. After watching this though I wonder if the "New Big East" can get the traditions, rivalries and generation defining games that have become the history of the Old Big East.

I was just amazed at how the Big East came to be and how revolutionary the formation of the Big East really was. Noone gave them the respect or attention the deserved until Ewing went to Georgetown. I also found it amazing the Penn State was denied entrance because they didn't care about football. The only thing that mattered was basketball. In today's day and age with how football is running everything I wonder if the "New Big East" may be as revolutionary as the formation of the Old Big East back in the late 70's. Forming a basketball first conference may bring in the type of players that could do for this conference what Patrick Ewing, Chris Mullin, Pinckney, and Pearl Washington did for the Old Big East.

[nasdadjr]

Oh and before people start blasting on here just wanted to say that I did know a lot of it but it was just that I didn't understand the importance of some of that history. Also glad to see this documentary did talk how football ruined the Big East.

[X-band '01]

Like all new things, give the new Big East some time. As you aptly noted, it was the rivalries that began to develop and became must-watch TV on the Mothership network. We'll have to see how Fox capitalizes on the TV rights for the league down the road.

I'm sure you meant to say basketball for Penn State; that's why they let Pitt in the league instead. There wasn't too much focus on the league after they admitted West Virginia, Rutgers, Notre Dame, Virginia Tech and so on. And yet they still played the Gnome's quote from last year lamenting on how crazy it was that the Big East split apart because of football (while completely oblivious to the fact that football was UC's only ticket into the league in the first place).

[nasdadjr]

Yeah I did mean basketball typo lol

[SM#24]

Noone gave them the respect or attention the deserved until Ewing went to Georgetown. Yes, getting Ewing was huge, but when Ewing committed to Gtown, the league was only 2 years old so I think that's where most of the lack of attention/respect came from. Also, any lack of attention/respect prior to that was from the genreal public and ignorant media; basketball knowledgable people had plenty of respect for the programs that made up the Big East.

[BTR MUSKIE]

Really good show.It doesn't tear down the current league but you do come away with the understanding that the glory days of this league are over.It will never be what it was in the '80s.Once football started taking over, the handwriting was on the wall.

[SlimKibbles]

(Posted in other thread)

[Always Learning]

Although I have yet to see the entire show, I have seen quite a bit of it, but while the producers did a fine job, me thinks too much of the success of the original Big East is given to G-Town, Big John, and Patrick. Its success was both the conference start and the start of ESPN. That marriage "made" the big east, as was point outed both were in the "show business" and both Dave Gavitt and Scotty Connal were "show biz people." As a basketball junkie, and as a cable scriber for the first time in those days, network shows went out the winder as ESPN was giving me a dose of college basketball every night.
More than Big John and Patrick, the NCAA going to 48 teams in 1980 (and eventually 64/68) allowed multiple teams from the same conference, and that started the rush of BE entrants (three that first year) into the field a la national attention (with success I might add). And by 1985, six BE teams were in the field, and they have had a good number in the FF including three NC's. I might add if Big John could"coach" there would be a couple more NC trophy's on the G-Town campus, but he was more interested in playing the afflicked black coach, than a good basketball coach. And blowing the Olympics is another piece of evidence backing that up.