RIP Lou Carnesecca

I love college football, but I hate the way it eventually undermined the nine-team Big East of the 1980s. For a kid growing up at the edge of Appalachia, having a league in all those big northeastern cities just seemed so glamorous, even as the basketball itself often resembled short track stock car racing.

 

They're going to be relevant again very soon, but look at the price...had to align themselves w/one of the worst people in the country to try and make their first F4 since Gentleman Lou was on the sidelines. As noted earlier, there'll never be another slice of life like the Big East at its ascent and apex. Huge personalities on and off the court who were lifers at their institutions and will loom large there forever. RIP Looie.

 

For a couple of years, my Dad and I would talk about skipping school and work and going down to MSG for the first full round of the Big East Tournament. It seemed like a novelty for there to be four games in one day on a weekday.

However, all we ever did was talk about it. Never went.

 

With no disrespect to the Big East, imagine if there had been national coverage of the epic ACC battles of the 1960s and 1970s. I've heard many residents of Tobacco Road talk about teachers wheeling TV sets into classrooms for the Thursday and Friday tournament games. On the west coast, we had nothing close to that level of basketball with the exception of the team in Westwood.

 

The 1974 ACC tournament final between NC State and Maryland might be the great game of the last 50 years.

 

There was also that little N.C. State-UCLA double overtime NCAA semifinal that same year.

 

My favorite thing is that Bill Raftery got a job as a studio analyst for the NCAA tournament because Seton Hall was so uncompetitive in the Big East.

 

Was the 1980s Big East the greatest collection of coaching talent in sports history?

 

Thompson, Louie, Massimino, P.J. at Seton Hall, Pitino at Providence, and Boeheim with the Orange.

 

Walter Berry and Michael Graham are on the first team all knucklehead. Derrick Coleman isn’t far behind, but he was talented enough to make a ton of cash.

 

Really good.

So were Dean, K, Jimmy V, Lefty and Holland.