The Best News a Big East Fan Could Hear

...is right here.

That's right, a league that gets back to what the Big East was all about in the first place, and could be great at again-- basketball.

Truth be told, a league like this would have a competitive advantage against the other "power conferences" in basketball, because hoops wouldn't end up an afterthought. My theory is that great leagues spawn great programs--not the other way around. A league that makes sense geographically (e.g. teams close enough together that there are natural rivalries at play), and with commonalities like school size, private/public, relgious/sectarian, etc., makes for a great league. It doesn't need to be homogenous, but at least have a core of similarity to it.

A new league that contained the B-Ball only schools of the Big East: Georgetown, Villanova, Providence, St. John's, Marquette, DePaul and Seton Hall; and added a few new teams like Xavier, Temple, Butler, as the article above suggests, would be a 10 team league. Pretty potent.

I think, if it were me, I'd rather see it go in the direction of a Northeast league, and forget about the midwest schools. And keep it to 8-10 teams so you could play a full double-round robin schedule, the way it should be. Raid the A-10. Also, 'Nova wants to go 1A football, so they're not going to come along for the ride.

I'd go with:

Holy Cross*
Providence
SJU
Seton Hall
St. Joe's
La Salle
Georgetown
George Mason
George Washington

I'd love to find another New England team to pair off with Providence, but it's imperative this league be an ALL-SPORTS league, to avoid the nonsense that's gone on the last 20 years. That means not taking any schools that compete in Div 1 (FBS or FCS) football. Thus, that rules out schools like Mass, URI, and Holy Cross that would've otherwise been a nice fit. BU?

*EDIT:

G'Town plays FCS football.  I was unaware of that.  As recently as a few yrs ago they were D3 football.  G'Town is a Big East essential, so I guess you have to make accomodations for a team or two to play FCS football in a different conference, so long as they're Big East in all substantially all other sports.  This makes Holy Cross a natural fit, so long as they stay Patriot league for football.

The reason I'd draw the line and not take 1A programs (like Mass and soon-to-be 'Nova), is that once they go down that road, it is inevitable that football will run their decisions.  The money invested, and money to be made, is just much higher on the football side.  To keep a basketball conference focused on basketball, make the tough decision up front to forgo teams that want 1A football.