The Big East used to have college basketball’s marquee conference tournament. It’s starting to find that old juice again

Analysis by Dana O’Neil, CNNSat, March 14, 2026 at 2:00 PM UTC

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The Big East logo and Nike Elite basketball before a game at Madison Square Garden in New York City on March 12, 2021. - Porter Binks/Getty Images

On the day that Georgetown signed Patrick Ewing, Dave Gavitt memorably turned to Mike Tranghese, his right-hand man, and declared, “We’re going to New York.’’

It was 1981 and the Big East, the league Gavitt largely conjured on his own, was all of two years old.

Plenty thought Gavitt was foolhardy, rushing to transplant a conference that few people believed could work into a city that long ago had soured on college basketball. Once the epicenter of college hoops, New York ostensibly shoved the sport aside following the 1950s point-shaving scandal that ripped through area schools. Madison Square Garden, where Gavitt was taking his toddler league, hadn’t sold out a college hoops game since 1948, back when the building sat on 49th Street.

Forty-five years later, two sellout crowds packed Madison Square Garden for what, at least in the minds of the biased, is the greatest night on the college basketball calendar. There is, all biases fully employed, nothing like Friday night in New York for the Big East Tournament.

As former official John Cahill explained in a book I wrote about the league: “Everybody’s been in the bars all day, and you come out through the tunnel, you felt like a gladiator walking into the lion’s den. You didn’t know if the team was going to get you, the coaches were going to get you, or the fans were going to get you. But somebody was going to get you.’’

This is where Georgetown’s Michael Graham took a swing at Syracuse’s Andre Hawkins in the 1985 final, and Jim Boeheim afterward inadvertently headbutted Tranghese in the locker room, incensed that Graham wasn’t tossed. This is where Lou Carnesecca took the court for the title game against Georgetown with a train of hand-tied towels spilling from his shoulder, his response to John Thompson, Jr. wearing a replica of his ugly sweater weeks earlier. This is where Ray Allen and Allen Iverson battled in the 1996 title game, and where Kemba Walker broke Gary McGhee’s ankles on a crossover so nasty that the crowd audibly gasped. This is where Syracuse and UConn tipped off at 9:36 p.m. and finished six overtimes and three hours and 46 minutes later.

On this particular fantastic Friday in the year 2026, the Big East kicked it back old school – four OG members and decades’ worth of animosity. Seton Hall versus Saint John’s. Villanova opposite UConn, the first time four original league members filled the semifinal since 1994. It was beautiful.

Fans bellowed their way through the anthem before the Johnnies and Pirates tipped off, a sure sign that they had found both the local watering holes outside and beer concession lines inside the Garden.

The two coaches assumed their poses. Pitino, his usual ashen-faced March, clasped his hands behind his back as if he was considering a work of art. Until St. John’s painted outside the lines and then he lost his marbles; Shaheen Holloway, who has squeezed every ounce of juice out of his lineup, leaned up against the press table, like he was watching elementary school pickup. Until his players played like elementary schoolers and then he scrunched up his face in disgust.

At one point Holloway and official Matt Potter went nose-to-nose, Holloway incensed on a missed call, Potter just plain incensed for being called out.

St. John’s led by 19. Seton Hall cut it to six. The Garden lost its mind. Order eventually was restored. Just another Friday night in New York.

In the nightcap, UConn fans filled the rafters with lusty U-C-O-N-N chants, the building that long has brought seemingly the entire state of Connecticut through its turnstiles once again filled with the Husky faithful.

Dan Hurley – $25,000 poorer after getting tossed at Marquette last weekend – and Ed Cooley were largely on their best behavior, though both were amusingly angry on a foul call at the end of the first half, Cooley because the whistle was blown at all and Hurley because Alex Karaban didn’t get two shots.

An epic weekend threatened by realignment

Somehow, no matter how the regular season goes, the Big East Tournament always delivers. But as all of college athletics grapples to figure out its future, it is hard not to watch the best conference tournament of them all and wonder how it will look going forward.

Because this Friday night foursome, as entertaining as the side shows were, also showed what the Big East is up against. At one time, St. John’s-Seton Hall and UConn-Georgetown might have read like a heavyweight double header. Here, the Johnnies were favored by 8.5, and the Huskies by 15.5. St. John’s won by 10 and UConn by 16.

The Big East has not been a complicated riddle to solve. St. John’s, UConn and Villanova spent the most on their rosters; they finished 1-2-3. Back when Gavitt formed the league, he did so with purpose. He eyed up like-minded institutions in major TV markets that would incubate great rivalries.

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Tarris Reed Jr. #5 of the Connecticut Huskies controls the ball as Caleb Williams #4, Malik Mack #2, and Vince Iwuchukwu #3 of the Georgetown Hoyas defend during the first half of the 2026 Big East Men's Tournament - Semifinal game at Madison Square Garden in New York City on March 13, 2026. - Ishika Samant/Getty Images

They did not all arrive on equal footing. When then head coach Bill Raftery was told the company his Seton Hall team would be keeping in the new league, he memorably looked at his athletic director and said, ‘we’re f**ked.’’ Yet fulfilling Gavitt’s belief that the top of the conference could raise its bottom, the Pirates were in the Final Four by 1989, the sixth different Big East team to make it to the national semifinals in a mere 10 years of existence.

Those schools – the OG members – remain the brand identity of the conference. No disrespect to the Midwest members who have been successful and critical additions, but Creighton-St. John’s of a year ago won’t bring the same juice as UConn-St. John’s.

Georgetown, the nastiest and best team in college basketball in the 1980s, is a shell of itself. The Hoyas haven’t tasted the NCAA Tournament since 2021, and let’s be honest, that was kind of a fluke after they got hot and won the conference’s automatic bid in that Covid-afflicted edition of this tournament.

The last merited, if you will, trip came in 2015 (that’s also the last time they had a winning Big East record) and the last time they made it beyond the first weekend was 2007.

Meanwhile Seton Hall is inarguably the feistiest team in the conference. The Pirates, picked for dead last, finished fourth on little more than grit and effort.

“This group gave me everything I asked for,’’ Holloway said after the loss. “You can’t ask for anything more than that.’’

But Holloway is Sisyphus, rolling the basketball uphill. Ever since the early days – when the school literally ran wires out the door to be able to televises home games – it has gotten by on spit, pluck and duct tape. The school finally got a state-of-the-art practice facility, a much-needed boost for a team that had prior to practiced essentially in a basement.

In 2024, Kadary Richmond led the Hall to the NIT title and two months later hopped across the Hudson where Pitino had $1 million waiting for him, a portal move that essentially summed up the entirety of Seton Hall’s plight.

No ‘vow of poverty’

Three years ago, St. John’s wasn’t in much better shape than the Hoyas or Pirates. One NCAA Tournament bid in eight years (and that was a First Four invite), seven out of eight Big East seasons with losing record.

But then Pitino came on board, billionaire alumnus Mike Repole opened his wallet, and a resurrection came to life. This will be the Johnnies’ first back-to-back NCAA berths since 1992-93.

“What they don’t realize is that St. John’s in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s dominated the East Coast,’’ Pitino said after his game, referring to his players sitting beside him. “They dominated the East Coast and then they went into hibernation like a bear for a while. These guys got them out of hibernation.”

Jacob Dar #1 of the Seton Hall Pirates goes to the basket as Dillon Mitchell #1 of the St. John's Red Storm defends during the 2026 Big East Men's Tournament - Semifinal game at Madison Square Garden on March 13, 2026 in New York City. - Sarah Stier/Getty Images

A similar resuscitation is underway at Villanova, which hiccupped its way through the post-Jay Wright era but then poached Big East veteran Kevin Willard – he attended Pittsburgh when it was in the conference and coached at Seton Hall – from Maryland and gave him the resources needed to entirely reinvent his roster. With just one returning player (Tyler Perkins), the Wildcats will make the NCAA Tournament for the first time in four years.

Pitino and Hurley have suggested that the conference implement a conference spending minimum to go with a maximum, which is easy when you’re UConn or you have Repole writing checks.

Not everyone has a Vitamin Water/NoBull/Body Armour/UFL/Horse Owner Sugar Daddy.

“Catholic schools, they take that vow of poverty,’’ Pitino joked to CNN Sports. “But seriously, we don’t have the football revenue so if we’re going to go out and spend $10 million on a roster, it has to be fundraised and that’s harder to do.

“This league has great coaches. It’s always had great coaches, but the imbalance is the money being spent. We’re just not on the same playing field when it comes to spending.’’

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Source: “AOL Sports”