HOUSTON (AP) – The Big East is back in the Final Four, reinvented and re-establishing itself as one of the best basketball conferences in the country.
The Wildcats play Oklahoma in Saturday night’s first national semifinal, making Villanova the first Big East team to reach the Final Four since the conference essentially dropped major college football after the 2013 season.
“It does reinforce that the reputation the conference has had for more than three decades as a college basketball powerhouse is intact,” Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman said Thursday.
The big Big East breakup came during sweeping Division I conference realignment that started in 2010. With FBS schools such as Pittsburgh, Louisville and West Virginia jumping to other conferences, the Big East’s basketball-focused schools decided to go it alone and return the league to its hoops roots. The remaining FBS schools formed the American Athletic Conference.
The basketball schools, with old-school Big East powers such as Villanova, Georgetown and St. John’s, kept the name and the tournament at Madison Square Garden. The so-called Catholic Seven added Xavier, Creighton and Butler and nabbed a 12-year, $500 million television deal with Fox’s fledging sports network, FS1.