Big East, Big XII, Big Changes

With the departures of Syracuse and Pittsburgh from the Big East to the ACC, a domino effect has been set off across all college athletics. This has led to schools scrambling around trying to fix their conferences. Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim though does not think that is it for Big East departures, according to The Birmingham News he stated ,”I think UConn will be in the ACC, if I had to guess, I think Rutgers could be.”

As Connecticut and Rutgers are most likely to follow, this would leave the Big East with just six remaining football schools. With teams leaving left and right from the Big East as well as the Big 12, the Big 12 has thoughts of absorbing the Big East. If teams such as Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma state do happen to leave the Big 12, sources say that the remaining teams would move to absorb the Big East, mostly because of the ability to secure a television deal. This would bring Missouri, Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas and Kansas State to play with the remaining Big East teams. There are seven Big East teams without football programs, St. John’s of course being one of them.

Football is where the money is at, and as a result of some schools looking to profit off football, a lot of other college sports will suffer. Being that football is played just once a week, travel is not much of an issue. But this now will have a much bigger effect on St. John’s as well as other basketball schools. Rather than going from New York to Pittsburgh, we may see the Red Storm going from Iowa then to Kansas and back to New York within a week. A travel schedule like that could be potentially draining on these teams. This will be an issue for all the current Big East teams, and since basketball is where they make their money, they could potentially suffer. Not only do basketball players suffer but so do sports such as soccer, baseball, and softball. All of which now could have a pretty gruesome traveling situation.

As of today, this whole situation looks pretty bad for St. John’s. But to look at the glass half full, we could be in line to see a few fun new rivalries and a rise up in the standings. Kansas has been one of the premier teams in the country for years, seeing St. John’s face them at the Garden could be quite exciting, and would definitely rake in a lot of cash. Syracuse, UConn and Pitt have been top Big East teams for a while, with the resurgence of St. John’s we could quickly take over those top spots in the standings. And with Syracuse ditching we now know for sure who New York’s team is. This will be a St. John’s city, and no one can argue that.

While a lot of this is speculation, it will most likely come into fruition in the next two years or so. Whether or not it hampers or helps St. John’s has obviously yet to be seen. But what we do know for sure is that big changes are on the way.