Dana ONeil - The Big East: Inside the Most Entertaining and Influential Conference in College Basketball History

His head aching, a dazed Mike Tranghese walked out of the locker room and shuffled back toward his courtside seat at Madison Square Garden, knowing his boss would be calling soon. It was March 1984, the year before the NCAA Tournament expanded to a sixty-four-team field, and as chair of the tourney selection committee, Dave Gavitt was holed up in Kansas City. In a days time, the committee members would reveal the bracket. Those duties meant Gavitt, the Big East commissioner, couldnt attend his own tournament final.

But he was watching intently, and phoned regularly to check in with Tranghese, his right-hand man. After watching Syracuse and Georgetown nearly come to blows on the court, Tranghese knew Gavitt would be looking for a full report.

Just five years old, the Big East already owned a reputation as a physical, and occasionally brutish, conference. Fights and in-game extracurriculars were commonplace, with game officials often forced to restore order after tempers flared. It didnt matter if one team was 100 and the other 010; this was a Northeast basketball turf war, and everyone got into it.

Fueled by their hotheaded coaches and burnished by their early dominance in the Big East, Syracuse and Georgetown held a special dislike for each other. Their rivalry was primal, a mutual hostility that established the leagues image more than any other. The two met in the very first Big East Tournament final, and between them owned three of the first four championships. By 1984 the enmity was near its apex when the two came together for the tournament championship in New York.

Though Georgetown ranked number two in the nation and the Orange were unranked, Syracuse held a 3-point lead late in the game when the Oranges Andre Hawkins and Georgetowns Michael Graham fought for a rebound, their arms tangled around the ball. Hawkins gained the momentum, but as he fell backward Graham appeared to swat at the big man with his left hand. Game official Dick Paparo charged into the melee, hooking his thumb over his shoulder, seemingly tossing Graham from the game for the would-be sucker punch. But after conferring with his other game officials, Paparo called off the hook. Graham remained in the game. Already furious and fuming at the reversal, Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim neared blinding rage as Georgetown not only rallied to force overtime but won the championship in the extra stanza.

Hoping to calm Boeheim afterward, Tranghese made his way to the Syracuse locker room. But there was no placating the Orange coach. He was fuming mad, convinced his team had been robbed of its rightful title. Gesticulating wildly as he retold his side of the story, Boeheim then headbutted his assistant commissioner. Stunned, Tranghese turned and left the room, his forehead bleeding slightly from the conk on the head. So Dave calls and says, Hows it going? Tranghese recalls. I screamed, Hows it going, Dave? Jimmy Boeheim just headbutted me. Thats how its going. Dave just laughed. It was crazy, but its also what made the whole thing so great. I mean, some of this stuff, you cant make it up.

No, you certainly couldnt make up much of what happened in the Big East Conference. It is almost too preposterous to believe. Years later, mention of the conference conjures up a well of sentiment, a heavy dose of yarn-spinning, and more than a little awe at what everyone got away with. This was a conference perfectly named. Everything about the Big East was bigits teams, its players, its games, its coaches, and, it turns out, its staying power.

Because its more than basic nostalgia that fuels Big East memories. It is genuine fondness and appreciation for a basketball league that transcended even fan allegiance. Grads always hold their alma maters close to their hearts, able to recount the minute details of glorious plays past. The Big East somehow spans school allegiances. Shoot, Im fifty-seven years old and Ill be walking down the streets of Manhattan and people will stop me to talk about certain games, says St. Johns great Chris Mullin. Its unbelievable.

It really was unbelievable. The players too good, the moments too magical, the personalities too oversized, and the tales too crazy to possibly be real. And yet it all happened, the ridiculous and the sublime, the sweet shots and the flailing fists, the hijinks and the histrionics.

Built from the vision of one man, Dave Gavitt, the Big East grew into a national power, partnering with an equally spunky sports network, ESPN, to become the most formidable and influential conference in college athletics history. The symbiotic TV partnership introduced national branding to a sport that previously had contented itself with mastering the local markets, and with ESPN as megaphone, the Big East introduced a whole different attitude to college basketball. From its physicality to its playground style, its fashion to its fuming coaches, the league knocked the civility of college hoops on its ear, bringing instead a whole new appeal with its urban street cred that still lives today. Todays posterizing dunks and posturing after made threesit all stems from the snarl and style of the Big East.