Sizing 'Em Up
November 04, 2003 03:49 PM | General
November 4, 2003
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The announcement today by the Big East Conference that Cincinnati, DePaul, Louisville, Marquette and South Florida have accepted invitations to join the league means a dramatically different look for a conference closing in on its 25th year of existence.
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| Basketball coach John Beilein addresses questions about the reconfigured Big East conference Tuesday in the Jerry West Room at the WVU Coliseum. (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
The Big East was forced to expand this fall when the Atlantic Coast Conference took Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College to form a 12-team all-sports league with the goal of playing a football championship game.
The ACC’s move left the Big East football conference with just five schools in Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, West Virginia and Connecticut, which replaces outgoing Temple. Cincinnati, Louisville and South Florida will bring the football conference back up to eight teams.
Marquette and DePaul join the other three schools in a basketball conference that will become one of the largest in the country with 16 members spanning from Chicago to the Midwest, to Providence in the East, to Tampa in the South.
Marquette and DePaul will participate in all sports except football and baseball, which they don’t currently sponsor.
Here is a look at the impact the new schools will have on some of the Big East-sponsored sports:
FOOTBALL
With no Miamis or Virginia Techs available, and Notre Dame not interested in forfeiting its independent status, Louisville is the best football program left for expansion.
The Cardinals are currently ranked 25th in this week’s ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll with a 7-1 record heading into Wednesday night’s game at No. 12-ranked TCU. After that, Louisville has games remaining against Memphis, Houston and Cincinnati and could be in line for a top bowl spot if it wins out and finishes the regular season 11-1.
“There doesn’t need to be a sense of panic amongst West Virginia fans, or Pitt fans, or Syracuse fans, or Connecticut fans or anyone else that we’re all of the sudden going to be relegated to mid-major status, if that’s the politically correct term, because we won’t,” said football coach Rich Rodriguez. “To even say there will be mid-majors in the next couple of years is a bad statement in itself."
Louisville plays at beautiful 42,000-seat Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium that was constructed with the ability to expand to 80,000 seats if needed. All 42,000 seats are of the chair-back variety, and no other college facility can make that claim.
Cincinnati began the season winning three straight games against East Carolina, Temple and West Virginia, but has cooled off and is now 4-4 heading into this weekend’s game against Rhode Island. The Bearcats went 7-7 last year and once again advanced to a bowl game under veteran coach Rick Minter. In 2002, UC nearly knocked off No. 2-ranked Ohio State, losing 23-19.
South Florida is one of the nation’s rising football programs, going 9-2 last season under Coach Jim Leavitt. The Bulls play their home football games at Raymond James Stadium (home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) and have averaged a respectable 30,521 fans per game this year.
Leavitt, who once turned down the chance to coach at Alabama, has constructed a South Florida program that has won 22 games over the last three seasons including a victory at Pitt in 2001. The former Kansas State defensive coordinator has USF off to a 5-3 record this season after last Friday night’s win over Cincinnati, and has games remaining against East Carolina, UAB and Memphis to become bowl-eligible.
“I’m pretty confident in four or five years we’re going to be in a pretty good situation,” said Rodriguez. “The Big East will be seen as one of the top conferences in the country for football.”
Connecticut, playing an independent schedule this season, owns a 7-3 record with its only losses coming at the hands of Boston College, Virginia Tech and N.C. State. The Huskies opened the season with a 34-10 win over Indiana and have games remaining against Rutgers and Wake Forest. Last year, UConn went 6-6 and finished the season with an impressive victory at Iowa State of the Big 12 Conference.
Connecticut plays at brand new Rentschler Field.
“You judge them based on the staffs they have, the areas they’re in and the facilities they’ve got,” said Rodriguez. “Twenty years ago West Virginia had probably the best football facility in the East. All of the sudden in the last five-six years everybody is building new facilities. This makes it exciting and certainly makes it challenging.”
MEN'S BASKETBALL
The addition of Cincinnati, DePaul, Louisville, Marquette and South Florida gives the Big East arguably the best basketball conference in the country.
The league replaces its three outgoing programs with three currently ranked in the ESPN/USA Today preseason Top 25 in Louisville, Cincinnati and Marquette. Pair those three with No. 1 UConn, No. 7 Syracuse, No. 19 Notre Dame and No. 22 Pitt and the Big East becomes a monster of a basketball conference.
“I said last week at Big East media day if this happens this league is going to get tough,” said men’s basketball coach John Beilein. “Louie Orr said to me then, ‘Hey Coach, it already is tough.’ Now the league has gotten tougher and that’s what we’re looking at.”
Marquette won the C-USA regular season championship, earned a No. 6 final national ranking and advanced to the Final Four under veteran coach Tom Crean. Marquette posted a 27-6 overall record and has back three starters from last year’s team.
Louisville got back into the national ratings behind the flamboyant leadership of Coach Rick Pittino, back in the college game after a stint in the NBA with the Boston Celtics.
Pittino took a team that went 12-19 in 2002 and turned in a 25-7 record last year, reaching the second round of the NCAA tournament. Pittino has 10 lettermen back and boasts one of the nation’s top recruiting classes.
Bobby Huggins has built an annual Top 10 contender at Cincinnati despite the Bearcats’ 17-12 record last year. UC had its streak of seven-straight 25-win seasons halted last year, but Huggins is expecting a return to glory with more weapons to utilize this winter.
DePaul is beginning its second season with Coach Deve Leitao, who guided the Blue Demons to a 16-13 record last year and a berth in the NIT. Leitao saw first-hand how to construct an annual Top 25 program as Jim Calhoun’s long-time assistant at Connecticut.
South Florida begins a new era with the introduction of Robert McCullum as its basketball coach replacing Seth Greenberg. McCullum brings a defensive approach to South Florida after having coached the last three seasons at Western Michigan.
“For a guy who came from my situation where just 12 years ago I was a Division II coach and trying to get a Division I job and to now be coaching in this league which I think will be the best in the country is a dream come true,” said Beilein. “It’s a challenge, I’m looking forward to it and I know at West Virginia we can get it done.”
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
Cincinnati and DePaul are the two new attractions that will get the most attention from Big East coaches when they join the league.
Cincinnati finished second in C-USA behind Charlotte last year with an 11-3 record and advanced to NCAA tournament play where the Bearcats lost in the first round to Arkansas. UC had a 23-8 record last season and veteran coach Laurie Pirtle has three starters returning.
“On the basketball side we’ve strengthened it,” said women’s basketball coach Mike Carey. “We had seven on the women’s side go to the NCAA tournament – the most of any conference in the country. We had the most go on to the Elite Eight, so it’s going to continue to be a tough basketball league.”
DePaul finished a game behind UC in the C-USA standings with a 10-4 league record and a 22-10 overall mark. The Blue Demons advanced to NCAA play last year and return their top five scorers from that team to earn a preseason ranking of 18th by Athlon Magazine. DePaul is picked to finish second in Conference USA.
Marquette (16-14) and Louisville (15-14) finished near the middle of the C-USA pack last year, while South Florida was last in Conference USA with a 7-20 overall record.
Carey believes the addition of the five schools will also open up new recruiting territories for the current schools in the Big East, “We did a little recruiting this year in Chicago and hopefully in the future we’ll be able to sign a few young ladies from that area,” he said. “It’s going to expand our recruiting and those are areas that we definitely want to take advantage of.”
OTHER SPORTS
Big East volleyball and baseball are two sports that will realize an immediate upgrade when the conference expands.
Louisville volleyball was ranked 22nd in the most recent USA Today/AVCA Division I Top 25 poll with a 15-4 record. The Cardinals won both matches last week and are 8-1 in conference play. The Bearcats actually lead C-USA with a 23-2 overall record including a 9-0 mark in league play. Cincinnati received 103 poll points to just miss Top 25 status last week.
“Those are two real strong programs,” said volleyball coach Veronica Hammersmith. “Louisville has always been good in volleyball and Cincinnati has been strong for the last 10 years. For us, adding those schools in addition to DePaul and Marquette will help us recruit more kids from the Midwest, particularly the Chicago area.”
The addition of Louisville and South Florida will help Big East baseball, too. Last year the Cardinals posted a 34-23 mark and had an RPI of 70, while South Florida went 31-27 to rank 87th. With West Virginia, Notre Dame and Rutgers, that gives the Big East five schools that finished last year in the RPI Top 100.
“I think the new teams will add a lot to the Big East,” said baseball coach Greg Van Zant. “Louisville’s athletic director is on the NCAA baseball committee and they play their home games at the old Triple-A ballpark. In the past they have played in the NCAA tournament.
“Cincinnati is building a new $8 million baseball facility on their campus, so those are two pretty good baseball programs right there,” Van Zant added. “South Florida has been to regionals in the past and having a Florida presence for Big East baseball is huge.”
Men’s soccer will get a lift with Cincinnati, a program that has spent a good portion of the season ranked in the Top 25. The Bearcats are currently 8-3-5 and trail first-place Louisville in the C-USA standings. The Cardinals have an 11-6-3 overall mark and are 5-2-2 in C-USA action. Cincinnati is sixth and Louisville is eighth in the most recent NSCAA regional rankings for the Great Lakes Region.
Marquette is the top addition in women’s soccer. The Blue Demons are tied with TCU for second in Conference USA with a 7-3 league mark and are ranked 10th in the Great Lakes Region by the NSCAA.
South Florida will immediately content for Big East championships in women’s tennis. The Bulls finished last year ranked 71st in the ITA women’s rankings. South Florida is coached by former professional tennis star Gigi Fernandez, half of the number-one-ranked doubles team in the world from 1991 until her retirement in 1997. Fernandez owns 17 Grand Slam Doubles titles.
“Adding South Florida makes up for the loss of Miami,” said women’s tennis coach Dan Silverstein. “Giggi has done a great job at South Florida and maintaining a Florida presence for our conference will help us in recruiting. Louisville and Marquette also have solid programs that give our conference more depth.”
