Georgetown Basketball History: History Feature
Return to Index

Chapter 5: The Beginnings Of The Big East

If the hiring of John Thompson in was the biggest decision in Georgetown basketball history, then the formation of the Big East conference in 1979 is no less momentous. And, in a strange, roundabout way, Georgetown fans can thank the University of Maryland for making it all possible.

Five years earlier, in March, 1974, #1-ranked North Carolina State defeated #4-ranked Maryland 103-100 for the ACC championship, a thrilling overtime game many consider among the three or four greatest college games ever played. The game and the repercussions which followed changed the course of college basketball.

At this time, the NCAA tournament was comprised solely of conference champions and a small number of independents. Only one bid was awarded per conference--as a result, the #4 team in the nation could not play for the NCAA title.

The injustice was readily apparent, and by the 1975 tournament, the field was expanded to 32 teams and multiple at-large bids were available.

This had a direct impact on nearly 60 teams in the East, Georgetown among them. Loosely organized under the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) for scheduling and officiating, these schools stood to be shut out of future tournaments without belonging to a conference which received automatic bids. In 1975, a series of post-season tournaments were held within four ECAC regions to secure NCAA bids.

In Georgetown's region, the ECAC South, a last second shot by Derrick Jackson propelled the Hoyas to a 63-62 upset over West Virginia and into their first NCAA tournament since 1943.

Georgetown won the ECAC-South bids in 1975, 1976, and 1979. But schools like West Virginia saw that they didn't need the ECAC to secure a NCAA bid, and began forming new leagues. One of the first was the Eastern Collegiate Basketball League, the "Eastern Eight" and later known as the Atlantic Ten. It was originally comprised of West Virginia, Pitt, Penn State, George Washington, Duquesne, Massachusetts, Villanova, and Rutgers.

Independents were headed towards a conference structure whether they liked it or not, and this was a concern to the rising powers of the East. The Hoyas enjoyed traditional rivalries with schools outside the ECAC South region--St. John's, Boston College, Holy Cross, and St. Joseph's, among others--but a new confederation of ECAC South Schools, among them Old Dominion, American, and Virginia Commonwealth, might change this.

Up in New England, Providence AD Dave Gavitt was concerned, too. Gavitt had built the Friars into a emerging national power in the 1970's, but the idea of being lumped into a league with New Hampshire and Northeastern wasn't what he had in mind. In 1978, Gavitt, joined by Georgetown's Frank Rienzo, Jack Kaiser of St. John's and Jake Crouthamel of Syracuse began meetings to discuss a league of their own.

Gavitt's idea was a presence in every major TV market in the East--from Boston to Washington, playing in larger arenas, gaining national TV exposure, and taking better advantage of the bounty of talent that had long deserted the East for schools with more exposure. With a sense of what was to come with college basketball, the four athletic directors proposed a seven team league for the fall of 1979.

There were holes to fill, of course. Villanova accepted a berth and this guaranteed the Big East a place in the Philadelphia market by 1980, after Villanova completed its Eastern 8 obligations.

Rutgers was then offered a spot but turned it down. Seton Hall was eager to take its place.

Gavitt saw Connecticut as a sleeping giant with their loyal fan following, and it became the sixth school. UConn struggled in the early years of the league, but Gavitt's vision ultimately proved correct.

The seventh school was expected to be Holy Cross, but HC president John Brooks, S.J. passed on the offer, not seeing it in the school's athletic interests. Holy Cross was a leading independent in those years and expected to remain so. Of course, the Crusaders' ancient Jesuit rival, Boston College, gladly took their place, and each program has gone in opposite directions ever since.

In the first year of the conference, everything came together. The Big East showcased a variety of coaching personalities and young talent not seen in one place before in Eastern basketball.

A new cable television programmer out of Bristol, Connecticut, the "Entertainment and Sports Programming Network" (better known as ESPN) began beaming the Big East across the nation thanks to game of the week package. best of all, the performance of three teams had the college basketball world talking.

For a first year conference to have not one but three schools in the top 13--#6 Syracuse, #10 Georgetown, and #13 St. John's--was phenomenal, even more so playing in a conference tournament before sold out crowds in the Providence Civic Center and on national TV.

For the Georgetown Hoyas, coming off an all-time best 24-5 season in 1979, 1980 was even better. Led by a pair of local standouts in Craig Shelton and John Duren, the Hoyas tied for first with Syracuse and St. John's for the regular season title, in no small part a result of a titanic 54-52 upset of #4-ranked Syracuse, ending the 57 game win streak at Manley field House. In the inaugural Big East tournament, the Hoyas beat Seton Hall, St. John's, and Syracuse to win the first Big East championship.

An even wilder NCAA ride followed for the Hoyas, all along the east coast. The club escaped past Jim Valvano's Iona Gaels in the first round, 74-71, before a 74-68 upset of #7 Maryland to advance to the regional finals. Despite a 14 point halftime lead, a heartbreaking three point play with :07 to play propelled Iowa to the Final Four instead of Georgetown, 81-80, denying the first year Big East its first berth in the Final Four.

Suddenly, the Big East was being referred to as the "northern ACC", the "conference of the future", and high school coaches and their players began to take notice. One of them was a Connecticut standout named Ed Pinckney. Another was a New York high school legend named Chris Mullin. And the third schoolboy was a Jamaican emigre living in Cambridge, Massachusetts and recruited by every school in the nation. Already being tabbed as "the next Bill Russell", the 7-0 center began paying more attention to a Georgetown team and the education-first message of its charismatic 6-10 coach,a former teammate of Russell himself. This schoolboy was Patrick Ewing.

The Big East was about to get bigger than anyone had ever imagined---that is, of course, except for Dave Gavitt.

To Chapter 6

Growing Pains

The Big East is an anomaly in major college athletics-- the only major conference not built around football. And therein lies the story of its struggle to survive.

When the Big East was formed, two schools actually turned down a chance to join the league. By the early 1980's, plenty of schools wanted to join. One was Penn State, looking for a higher profile for its own basketball team.The idea of a mammoth Penn State flexing its muscles met immediate opposition. Penn State's Joe Paterno then floated the idea of an new all-sports conference for the East's Division I-A football schools. To do so would have meant getting Syracuse and BC to leave the conference.

Commissioner Dave Gavitt convinced a reluctant league membership to add a ninth school--Pittsburgh--to save the league from losing two others. The all-sports league never took off, and Penn State moved to the Big Ten by the end of the decade.

The Penn State move set off a chain reaction in conference changes nationally. To keep the league viable to its football schools, the Big East added Miami in 1990 and formed a football league with four Big East schools and four gridiron independents --West Virginia, Rutgers, Temple, and Virginia Tech.

Soon, these schools wanted in the Big East for basketball. A schism had developed between the "football" schools (Pitt, Miami, BC, Syracuse) and the smaller "basketball" schools (Providence, Seton Hall, Georgetown, St. John's), with Villanova and Connecticut on the fence.

Expanding to 14 would marginalize the smaller schools in this unfamiliar alliance, but if they rejected the schools, the football schools could leave. After nearly two years of impasse, the Big East added two schools--Rutgers and West Virginia-- but passed on Temple and Virginia Tech. Five years later, in a similar compromise, the conference added Virginia Tech for the 2000-01 year but left Temple out.

In 1995, in a move to solidify its own program, Notre Dame asked to join. With its national prestige and fraternity among the Catholic schools in the conference, it was an offer the Big East could not refuse. And the Big East ended up at 14 after all.