Big East awaiting awesome future

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NEW YORK -- This is the last season of the Big East basketball conference as we know it. Then it only gets better.

Next year conference football powers Virginia Tech and Miami will join the ACC, taking their lightweight basketball programs with them. Boston College, a charter member of the Big East, is tentatively scheduled to join the ACC in time for the 2005-06 season but can leave the Big East whenever it's ready to pay a $5million exit fee. The school now finds itself a basketball pariah among opponents who used to be brothers.

"I personally think it's very sad that they are leaving," said Jim Calhoun, coach of the nation's top-ranked Connecticut Huskies and a native of the Boston area. "I have no desire to play Boston College. It's not the fact that they are leaving, but how they did it. I do think loyalty is a big thing. This league has been very special to the East, It has made Eastern basketball."

What began as a seven-member league composed of Northeast colleges in 1979 will go national in two years when the league incorporates midwestern Conference USA powers Marquette, Louisville, Cincinnati and DePaul. South Florida, not known as a basketball factory, also will join the Big East to complete a 16-team lineup and form one of the strongest college basketball conferences ever.

Basketball has been the Big East's signature sport, a fact reinforced last season. Syracuse won the NCAA men's championship. Connecticut won its second straight NCAA women's national championship and fourth overall. The men's NIT championship was an all-Big East affair, with St. John's defeating Georgetown 70-67 in the finale. Four Big East teams also reached the NCAA men's Sweet 16.

This season UConn is the unanimous preseason choice as the nation's No.1 team. Syracuse is a consensus top-10 team and a Final Four contender. Notre Dame (No.21) and Pittsburgh (No.22) also are ranked in the preseason Top 25. Seton Hall and Providence are viewed as NCAA tournament teams.

Emeka Okafor, UConn's shot-erasing 6-foot-9 junior center, is projected as the NBA's top pick if he decides to come out after this season. Notre Dame's wonderful playmaker, Chris Thomas, is on everybody's first-team All-American lists. Hakim Warrick, Syracuse's 6-8 skywalking forward, and Ben Gordon, UConn's offguard scoring machine, are seen as NBA lottery picks. Charlie Villanueva, Connecticut's prized blue-chip 6-11 forward, turned down the NBA Draft last summer for a shot at a NCAA championship with the Huskies.

In addition, the Big East leads all conferences with 11 players out of 50 nominated for the Wooden Award, given annually to the nation's best college player. The NBA has drafted 164 Big East players over the years. Forty Big East alumni are playing in the NBA; 25 of those were first-round picks, including Allen Iverson and Derrick Coleman as No.1 selections overall.

"As many years as I can remember, we've been questioned as to how good our conference is every year," said Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, who is the only original coach left in the Big East as he starts his 28th season. "I think last year we probably answered it a little bit better with four teams in the 16 and us being able to win. ... This year, looking at the conference, I think it should be at least as good as we were last year."