"the big east formed because those teams saw the early success of the eastern eight (atlantic 10)"
I disagree with this statement for two major reasons:
1. the EAA was not a success - that's why two of its four best programs were so quick to leave it. It lacked real rivalries aside from Pitt-WVU, though RU-Nova could have developed into one. It's initial tournament at the Philadelphia Spectrum failed to draw more than 5000 fans, even with Villanova and RU there.
2. the real motivation for the creation of the BE and why SU and St. John's to join it was an NCAA ruling that teams in "conferences" that had NCAA auto-bids actually had to play one another during the regular season. That meant that St. John's would end up having lots of games against its ECAC Metro mates like LIU, St. Francis of Brooklyn and of PA, Wagner, St. Peter's, etc. while SU would end up playing several smaller programs in its ECAC upstate and DC/MD area, like a Loyola, American and others. The thought of having home and homes with programs like that drove several schools together to put together a conference that would have better rivalries.
#2 coincided with Dave Gavitt's vision of a new conference whose members would bring in all of the major eastern TV markets. PC already had the Providence CC, with 12,000 seats to fill and it wasn't gonna fill 'em for games against ECAC New England mates Maine, UNH, UVM, Northeastern, BU, etc.
So Gavitt made his move and the rest, as they say, is history. And as most of us here know very well, PC people have no real interest in football, so he was sure to include a preemptive move that might have taken BC and SU out of the BE, by inviting Pitt into it. And it was quite possibly he that engineered the vote to keep PSU out of it.
Had Gruninger not rushed into forming the EAA, RU, with its newly opened RAC, would have faced the same kind of schedule as St. John's in the ECAC metro, whose championship we actually won the first two times it was played (at MSG). So in 1978 (?), when Gavitt offered an invitation to RU to join the BE, RU would have jumped at the chance. But instead of having home games against SU, St. John's, Villanova, UConn, G-town, and BC each year, RU fans were treated to GW, Duquesne, UMass (who was horrible for years till Calipari came along), and then a bit later, URI, St. Bonaventure, and a not-so bad St. Joe's and quite good Temple. But our opponents lacked the pizzazz of the BE and for the most part, till Chaney elevated Temple to #1 in the nation, A-10 teams were almost NEVER on TV. TV was dominated by BE games and it looked as though the BE would destroy the rest of eastern basketball.
Typing all this has actually saddened me. These are all bad memories for me. RU basketball used to be my passion at a point in time when RU football was just a social event. But nowadays, I barely follow the team. Like many here, I believe that things could have turned out much differently.
