Always a Big East Fan

By Jeanne McPartland

While loyally wearing my FemmeFan hat, I watched the SuperBowl put an end to the Football Season. Although, the media will ballyhoo the big game ad nauseum for a long time, there are those of us who need to move our attention elsewhere. Since we are sports junkies we are compelled, drawn, dragged back to the sports scene in search of another sport to be passionate about.

The Olympics will draw our attention for a time but when that’s done…what then?

Some of us will take a dogleg to golf…others will become engrossed in the NBA or NHL and then there are those of us who never having left our alma mater and will turn to college basketball.

I am and always will be a passionate Big East Fan. My team has gone through numerous coaching changes and a name change since I left Louie Carneseca and the Red Men. Now known as the Red Storm under Coach Norm Roberts, St. John’s is staging a come back but the competition is huge.

West Virginia, the Mountaineers, is the first Big East team to start 8 and 0 in league play since UConn in 1993-94. Along with them, seven other Big East Teams are in the top 40 of the RPI Rankings as of the end of January. St. John’s is not one of them.

When the ACC wooed Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College it was thought that the Big East might be in trouble. Well, maybe Big East football will have to struggle but basketball is another story. When the Big East picked up Cincinnati, Louisville, University of South Florida, and DePaul the League became the largest conference in College Basketball with 16 teams. It was obvious that if these teams played up to their potential, eight slots for the Big Dance would not be enough. On January 27, 2006 an article in the Newark Star Ledger asked “Will Eight Be Enough?” Connecticut, Villanova and West Virginia were all in the top ten ESPN Poll as of SuperBowl Sunday. Will Pittsburgh, (this seems to be their year) and Georgetown join them before long and make 50% of the top 10 Big East?

I think this makes a case for more than eight slots to be awarded to the Big East. You bet I’ll be glued to the set on Selection Sunday, March 12 when the final 65 are announced.

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