Big East Realignment: Commissioner John Marinatto Standing Up To ACC

Sep 20 8:47a by Jason Kirk

As the Big East stands to lose two of its best football-playing schools to the ACC, along with perhaps two more to the ACC, one to the Big Ten and one to the SEC, you'd be forgiven for assuming a somber tone out of the northeast. But this Pete Thamel piece on the conference paints a different picture:

"We have a track record of coming out stronger than we did before," [Big East commissioner John] Marinatto said, referring the A.C.C.'s raid of three Big East teams in 2003. "We may even hold the opening round of our basketball tournament in Greensboro," a frequent site of the A.C.C. tournament, he said in jest.

That's in addition to forcing the Syracuse Orange and Pittsburgh Panthers to remain in the conference through the 2013-14 season.

Elsewhere in Corridor pride, former Big East commissioner Michael Tranghese says at least his conference "kicked [the ACC's] butt in basketball the last 10 years" and Connecticut Huskies coach Jim Calhoun says he just wants his program to land in the nation's top basketball conference, whichever conference that may be. Look at Calhoun's comments and you can see one of the ways UConn is selling itself to the ACC:

"We sit near Fairfield county, where many of our fans are from, a bedroom community for New York City," he said. "I don't know of any other school, with the exception of St. John's, Seton Hall that has that much influence in that city, the media capital of the world."

For more on the Big East, check out Big East Coast Bias.