While it appears that the realignment carousel in Division I collegiate athletics has come to a halt — at least for now — plenty of college basketball programs will be getting used to new surroundings this season. In all, over 50 schools were affected in the 2013-14 round of realignment, an upheaval that has radically changed the athletic landscape over the past three years. As power conference schools chased the football dollar, the domino effect reverberated throughout the NCAA. Many schools in lower and mid-level leagues changed their associations as the news from president’s and athletic director’s offices cascaded down throughout almost all of the conferences. Realignment has been widely panned by college basketball fans and pundits alike who lament the extinction of great, historic rivalries such as Kansas-Missouri and Syracuse-Georgetown. While that is absolutely true, realignment is not all bad. New, interesting rivalries will now be created such as Duke-Syracuse, Memphis-Louisville (an old rivalry resurrected for at least one year) and Xavier-Butler (a continuation from last year’s Atlantic 10). Undoubtedly, many more new rivalries will emerge over the long term.

Realignment Felt Like This at Times, But It Seems to Have Finally Settled Down

Let’s take a look at the winners and losers of this year’s round of conference realignment.

Winners

The ACC: When word first leaked that Syracuse and Pittsburgh were discussing an exit from the Big East, some people may have thought it was a joke. Alas, it was real and it happened very quickly. ACC commissioner John Swofford successfully raided the Big East yet again, pulling off a 48-hour coup that effectively drove the final nail into the coffin of what we all knew as the Big East. Now the ACC has effectively become the old Big East, a 15-team behemoth that is absolutely loaded at the top. Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Notre Dame join legendary programs Duke and North Carolina, along with a collection of schools that have been historically solid. This year’s ACC will be great, but in the long run the battles at the top of this league will be second to none with the powerhouses sure to be involved. What we saw in the Big East over the last decade should become commonplace in the new-look ACC. It will get even better next season when Louisville replaces ACC founding member Maryland, which will depart for the Big Ten.

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We’re just a little over a week from the start of games across this fair nation, and that means it’s time to preview each of the major seven basketball conferences on the RTC Podcast. This week we’ll unveil previews for the Big East (Tuesday), Big Ten (Wednesday), SEC (Thursday) and Pac-12 (Friday), with the AAC, ACC and Big 12 to come next week. As always, Shane Connolly (@sconnolly114) is our talented and engaging host, leading the group through a series of topics and questions related to the upcoming season. For this podblast, we invited longtime RTC correspondent and Big East aficianado Brian Otskey (@botskey) to the program, as he helped us navigate through what to expect from a Big East Conference that looks quite a bit different from what we’ve gotten accustomed to.

Make sure to add the RTC Podcast to your iTunes lineup so that you’ll automatically upload it on your listening device after we record. And don’t forget to check out our 2013-14 Preseason Podcast, the National Edition, and feel free to contact us through Twitter or email — we’re listening.

The rundown is below if you’d like to skip around.

• 0:00-6:06 – Marquette Finally Gets Preseason Love
• 6:06-9:55 – Best of the Rest in the Big East (Creighton, Georgetown)
• 9:55-13:46 – Big East Middle Tier and the former A-10 teams (St. John’s, Providence, Villanova, Butler, Xavier)
• 13:46-15:08 – Team Set to Disappoint (Providence, St. John’s)
• 15:08-16:40 – Randy’s New Favorite Team – Big East Style
• 16:40-18:45 – Battle for Big East’s Second Best Player
• 18:45-20:16 – Player Key For His Team to Take a Leap
• 20:16-21:47 – Player That May Fall Short of Expectations
• 21:47-25:07 – Perception of the New Big East
• 25:07-27:02 – Big East Bold Predictions

1. Change is in the air at Creighton, and not just in terms of the league in which the Bluejays will compete this year.  The school recently held an open house to unveil a new court, featuring a revised logo.  Replacing the ‘Jays’ that once adorned the hardwood is a new Billy Bluejay head design over a bold capital ‘C’.  This unveiling is a part of a full branding initiative by Creighton, which will include a new Billy Bluejay mascot design, in an effort to solidify the school’s visibility in the college basketball world.  Associate athletic director Mark Burgers referred to the branding of two new hoops rivals as a reason for the change in conjunction with a move to the Big East: “If you look across the Big East schools and the benchmarking, Villanova has the ‘V’ and Xavier has the ‘X’ and you go down all the schools; we incorporated the ‘C’ because we thought that was important.”
2. Earlier this week, we found out that Marquette’s Jameel McKay was planning to transfer, an announcement that came as a surprise to many in the Golden Eagles community. According to Marquette basketball blog Paint Touches, McKay’s decision is largely due to his position and role on the team: “(It was) just disagreements on things, is as simple as I can put it. Playing out of position was a part of it. I wasn’t comfortable (in the role they had him in).”  McKay has been contacted by a number of strong high major programs, and will look to make a decision soon, but he plans to finish out the semester at Marquette.
3. Butler is looking for a bump in recruiting now that it has joined the Big East, and may be on the verge of landing a few prized players.  Four-star guard K.J. Walton was on campus this week.  The high school junior is still looking for an offer, but according to Zak Keefer at IndyStar.com, he is high on the Bulldogs, and has a strong relationship with new head coach Brandon Miller, who he has known since he was 13.  Butler also hosted Covington, Kentucky guard James Bolden at practice this week, as well local product Kyle Guy, who is already on Indiana’s radar.
4. Josh Smith is one of the most ballyhooed additions to the Big East this year, and as of Thursday, he has been cleared to play for the start of the upcoming season for Georgetown.  Smith, who transfers to the Hoyas after leaving UCLA six games into the 2012-13 season, has received fairly unprecedented treatment in his transfer appeal from the NCAA according to ESPN’s Eamonn Brennan, who was incredibly surprised by the NCAA’s decision.  Despite not fitting into the general outlines for a hardship waiver, and not moving schools to be closer to home, the NCAA will allow Smith to play without sitting out for a full season, where it has neglected to do so for countless other players over the years. [Ed. Note: There has been some speculation that the NCAA granted the waiver due to the way Smith was treated by the UCLA staff while dealing with his ongoing weight issue.] Brennan believes this decision is another in a long line of strange moves by a rattled NCAA that has been heavily scrutinized on numerous levels: “I think college players should be able to transfer with far fewer restrictions and wait times than currently exist — but that doesn’t make the ruling consistent with any past precedent. What about every kid in the past five years with a legitimate appeal who was denied on technicality? Is the NCAA really that rattled?”
5. Buzz Williams sat down with CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein to discuss the Marquette program and his outlook on the upcoming season, and as usual, he was incredibly insightful and honest about his team.  He believes that Derrick Wilson is ready to step into the leadership role left vacant by Junior Cadougan‘s graduation: “…to be honest, I think that the roster has played out perfectly for Derrick Wilson’s career. I do think that he’s ready for the next step, and I think he’s as prepared as you can be having never been in that role to be ready for that role.”  Williams is very high on his freshmen, who he calls the best recruiting class he’s had since becoming the head coach at Marquette, especially guard Deonte Burton, whom Rothstein refers to as a  “Buzz Williams type of player.” He also states that he believes Jamil Wilson‘s talent measures up against that of former Golden Eagles stars Jae Crowder and Lazar Hayward, and has similar ability to Jimmy Butler: “Those other guys were every-day, hard core guys and I think that’s what Jamil has to get to and I think he’s working really hard to be that guy. He’s always been talented. He’s extremely intelligent. He’s got some Jimmy Butler qualities. Jimmy could do multiple things, guard multiple guys. So can Jamil.”  While Williams is humble as always, and downplays the preseason hype that his team has garnered a bit, the interview should make Marquette fans feel good about their squad heading into the season.

1. New York Times writer Zach Schonbrun experienced a sense of relief among the various schools at last week’s Big East Media Day in Manhattan. After many seasons played under the shroud of conference realignment, culminating with the awkwardness of last season’s farewell tour for Syracuse, Pittsburgh, and Notre Dame, the Big East is now a settled, basketball-driven league focused on private schools in metropolitan markets. While the conference’s new members — Butler, Creighton, and Xavier — are all located in the Midwest, they fit into the league quite well culturally. St. John’s head coach Steve Lavin actually thinks the new schools fit in better than some of the public universities that have moved on to the American Athletic Conference, and the schools who left for the ACC for largely football-based reasons: “It’s not like a ‘Sesame Street’ deal — which one doesn’t belong… You’ve got a tree, a bush, some seaweed and then a truck. It just didn’t fit. I think now we have a league that’s more similar.”
2. Georgetown lost an excellent player to the NBA Draft in standout forward Otto Porter, but guard Markel Starks thinks that the Hoyas are more than just one player and that his team will look to prove that this season: “We play as a unit… We play as a group. Obviously, we just lost a great player. Even still, with or without him, we play as a unit. … I think we can still be a very dangerous team.” Starks, now a senior, will probably bear much of the weight of Porter’s absence in the scoring column, after averaging 12.8 points per game last season. He will be joined in the backcourt by D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera, who proved capable of exploding for big point totals last season. Smith-Rivera scored at least 14 points in three of his last four regular season games last season, and dropped 33 in 34 minutes against DePaul on February 20.
3. One of the major changes fans will notice in the conference this year is a lack of legendary coaches on the sidelines, although the Big East will not be hurting for talent in that spot. Gone are Hall of Famers like Jim Boeheim and Rick Pitino, but rising stars like Marquette’s Buzz Williams and Georgetown’s John Thompson III are poised to lead the conference into this new era. Thompson agrees that the coaching talent in the league is very high: “If you look around the room, the quality of coaching is outstanding. Yes, we lost some Hall of Fame coaches, but I don’t think too many teams want to go up against the guys in this room. Every game is going to be a battle. That was true last year; that’s going to be true this year.” Williams also believes in the overall quality of the league, and thinks it stands up with the best conferences in college basketball: “Every coach is going to say they play in the best league, but if you objectively study the numbers, I think what this league has done the last five years speaks for itself. I think this year that will hold firm, too.”
4. Even without the likes of Syracuse, Louisville, and UConn, many are excited about the prospects of the Big East, especially those at the league’s three new schools: Butler, Creighton, and Xavier. Between the television contract with Fox Sports 1 and the ability to play at Madison Square Garden, the Big East provides a great increase in exposure for the former Horizon League, Missouri Valley Conference, and Atlantic 10 teams. Rumble in the Garden‘s Chris Ronca caught up with Xavier’s Chris Mack and Creighton’s Greg McDermott, who were both very excited about these new possibilities. Mack says his players are excited about playing at MSG:  “Playing for your conference championship in the Mecca is an amazing opportunity for Xavier fans and players.” McDermott talked about the league’s TV contract and it’s impact on the Creighton program: “[Creighton’s] fans have longed for this for awhile.” McDermott went on to say that “with Fox [Sports] 1, it’s very exciting for the program… there’ll be a lot of new ideas with how [Creighton’s] product is shown nationally.”
5. Sports Illustrated‘s [and RTC‘s] Chris Johnson’s “Stock Watch” series sets its gaze on the Big East, and he’s quite bullish on Villanova, while throwing a bit of shade on Butler. Johnson cites Villanova’s surge in the middle of last season, where the Wildcats knocked off top five Louisville and Syracuse outfits in a a five-day stretch, as evidence that Jay Wright’s club is very dangerous. He likes the combination of Ryan Arcidiacono, JayVaughn Pinkston, and Daniel Ochefu, and believes that if the team continues to get to the free throw line and play stingy defense, it can push for the top of the league standings. As for Butler, Johnson believes that the loss of Brad Stevens in conjunction with an increase in the difficulty of conference play will hurt the Bulldogs, as will the departures of Rotnei Clark and Andrew Smith as well as the injury to Roosevelt Jones.

Wednesday morning at the Big East Media Day in New York City, the league announced that Creighton forward Doug McDermott had been selected as Preseason Player of the Year by the league’s 10 coaches. McDermott decided to return for his senior year with the Bluejays in large part due to Creighton’s arrival in the Big East. He told reporters that “If it was the Missouri Valley, I don’t know if I would’ve come back,” he said. “This is just a new challenge.”

McDermott’s Return Makes Creighton a Contender (ALYSSA SCHUKAR/THE WORLD-HERALD)

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The next generation of the Big East officially kicked off Wednesday with the conference’s annual basketball media day in New York. It was a day marked more by who was missing than who was in attendance. Gone was one of the faces (and mouths) the original Big East was built upon, Jim Boeheim. Gone were the defending national champions, Louisville and Rick Pitino. Gone was even a man who had never coached a game in the conference but whose arrival was expected to help the revamped league, Brad Stevens. Even the traditional Big Monday with Sean McDonough, Jay Bilas and Bill Raftery on ESPN is a thing of the past.

It’s a New Era in the Big East Conference

Yes, there’s still a Thompson roaming the sidelines at Georgetown. There’s still Villanova, St. John’s, Providence and Seton Hall, schools bonded together by their Big East heritage and lack of high-level football. But the 2013-14 season will be decidedly different in the Big East. Marquette, always solid but not spectacular since the days of Dwyane Wade, was the media’s choice to win the league. The preseason player of the year, Doug McDermott, plays college hoops in Nebraska at Creighton. The team the closest removed from playing for the national title is Butler, which only has DePaul to thank for avoiding the cellar in the preseason poll.

New Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman vowed in her address to “make the Big East a force in college basketball.” The key word here is “make.” Yes, there’s clear talent this year but there are question marks everywhere. McDermott is a two-time All-American, but one who will face steeper competition night in and night out this season. Marquette returns the frontcourt of a team that was a win away from the Final Four, but must replace talented backcourt performers like Vander Blue and Junior Cadougan. Georgetown lost to Dunk City (Florida Gulf Coast) early in the NCAA Tournament last season and then lost Otto Porter to the NBA.  They were still picked to finish second.

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Today at the Big East Media day held in New York City, Marquette was picked by league coaches as the preseason favorite to win the conference. The Golden Eagles edged out Georgetown ever so slightly to gain the top spot. Georgetown (with two #1 votes) was followed by new member Creighton (one #1 vote), with Villanova, St. John’s (two #1 votes) and Providence coming in next. New member Xavier was picked seventh followed by Seton Hall, while Butler and DePaul rounded out the 10-team poll. The entire group is listed below.

Shout It Buzz; You’re #1 in the Big East Preseason Poll (MJS/R. Wood)

1. Marquette (5) 74
2. Georgetown (2) 70
3. Creighton (1) 61
4. Villanova 58
5. St. John’s (2) 56
6. Providence 41
7. Xavier 38
8. Seton Hall 20
9. Butler 19
10. DePaul 13

This is Marquette’s first time atop the preseason poll as a member of the league. With the losses of Syracuse, Louisville and Connecticut and others, it has opened the door for teams like Marquette and Georgetown to become the preseason favorites. Marquette in the past has prided itself on being the quiet underdog and surprising people after being picked to finish in the middle of the pack. But this year Buzz Williams will hope to finish the way his team did last year, with a Big East championship. The Golden Eagles return its frontcourt of Davante Gardner, Chris Otule and Jamil Wilson, but will have to replace the backcourt with the losses of Junior Cadougan, Trent Lockett and Vander Blue. Sophomore Derrick Wilson has been tasked with taking over as the starting point guard and stepping up as a team leader. Highly heralded recruits JaJuan Johnson, Duane Wilson and Deonte Burton will play substantial minutes early, and it will be paramount that they are able to contribute by conference season.

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1. Welcome back to Rush the Court’s Big East Microsite, fans old and new. Basketball season is nearly upon us, which means we are officially in “long, somewhat arbitrary list” season, and there’s no longer list to obsess over for the next few days than CBS Sports‘ top 100 college hoops players in 2013-14. Six Big East players from six different programs made the group. As one would expect, Creighton’s Doug McDermott headlined the sextet, coming in at the #3 spot, only behind anointed Jayhawk Andrew Wiggins and Oklahoma State’s Marcus Smart. Matt Norlander calls McDermott “the premier scorer in college basketball.” Xavier guard Semaj Christon comes in at #19, Providence guard Bryce Cotton at #66, Georgetown’s Markel Starks at #75, St. John’s forward Jakarr Sampson at #85, and Marquette’s forward/free throw assassin Devante Gardner rounds out the league’s top players at #96. A few commenters argued that the Big East is underrepresented on the list, citing Seton Hall’s Fuquan Edwin and Butler’s Kellen Dunham as possible snubs, but ultimately, these lists in early October mean very little.
2. NBC Sports‘ CollegeBasketballTalk is working through its team-by-team season preview, and yesterday was all about Marquette. Rob Dauster calls the Golden Eagles the favorite to win the Big East this year, citing a frontcourt which he expects to be “one of the best in the country.”  The big question marks for Buzz Williams’ team lie in the backcourt, where he will have to rely on fairly untested junior Derrick Wilson (13.1 MPG, 1.1 PPG in 2012-13), and streaky senior Todd Mayo in the starting lineup.  However, Marquette’s greatest strength, Dauster argues, is Williams’ ability to manage his teams to fit their individual strengths and talents on a year to year basis, and there’s no reason to disagree with that.
3. The “best names” lists are not the only places where you can find St. John’s guard Sir’Dominic Pointer. CBS Sports‘ Jon Rothstein included the junior in his recent “Ten Glue Guys to Watch” post along with Creighton’s Grant Gibbs and Georgetown’s Nate Lubick. In discussing Pointer, Rothstein talks about coach Steve Lavin’s nickname for his guard (who, honestly, does not need a nickname): “Costco,” which refers to his ability to give the Red Storm “a little of everything” on the stat sheet. Rothstein also praises Gibbs’ maturity as a sixth-year senior and his clutch passing ability, as well as Lubick’s ability to facilitate from the high post — a key attribute for a Georgetown forward in coach John Thompson III’s Princeton offense.
4. Normally, Big East teams don’t want to hear from John Cahill any earlier than they have to, but his presence at practice was welcomed by Creighton earlier this week. As the newly named supervisor of officials in the Big East, Cahill traveled to Omaha to discuss the conference, new NCAA mandates, and how the Bluejays can expect the rules of the game to be enforced in their new league. According to Cahill, this season will see far more fouls called for hand-checking contact on the perimeter in an effort to increase overall scoring. However, he does not expect the Big East to lose it’s hard-earned identity as a physical, defense-oriented conference: “The thing that I found in my officiating career is that in the Big East, every possession is defended and challenged.”
5. Providence fans are pretty bullish on head coach Ed Cooley, and rightfully so. Since stepping on campus a couple of years ago, Cooley has taken the Friars’ recruiting to another level, as GoLocalProv‘s Kevin Farrahar rightfully points out. Where the Friars landed just four RSCI top-100 players from 1998-2010, Cooley has brought eight to campus since taking the job in 2011.  The class of 2014 is shaping up especially nicely for Providence, as it already includes seven-footer Paschal Chukwu from Cooley’s old stomping grounds of Fairfield, Connecticut, as well as highly-rated forward Jalen Lindsay and Delaware product Ben Bentil. This increased recruiting prowess, as well as a more manageable schedule in the “new Big East,” may help rejuvenate the Providence program as it looks to make its first NCAA Tournament since 2004.

Four short years ago, the Oregon basketball program was nearly left for dead. Of the Ducks’ 12 losses to Pac-10 opponents, 11 of those came by double figures. There were also losses to teams like Portland and Montana, and while McArthur Court was still a classic, its age was starting to show in a bad way. In January of the 2009-10 season, the Oregon football team went to its first Rose Bowl in 14 years, and it felt like the hoops team was getting left behind in all of the athletic excitement.

Enter Dana Altman the very next season. Altman was hired after a lengthy search, one that reportedly had many many high profile targets turn down the job. The former Creighton head man made a splash immediately, sweeping the Civil War series with Oregon State, upsetting a top 20 Washington team, and making it to the semifinals of the Pac-10 Tournament. They didn’t stop there, though, and after pulling an invitation to the CBI to close the season, the Ducks beat Altman’s former team in the best of three championship series in thrilling fashion. Also, halfway through the year, Oregon unveiled its state of the art replacement to The Pit, the Matthew Knight Arena. While drawing criticism from most of the nation for its oddly-drawn floor art, Oregon fans, and more importantly recruits, were drawn to it.

Oregon’s NBA-Like Arena Has Helped The Resurgence Of The Hoops Program (credit: Brian Feulner)

Over the last two seasons, Oregon has continued to gain momentum. It won 24 games in 2011-12, including road contests at Nebraska, Arizona, and Oregon State. That season concluded with a trip to the NIT, and the Ducks were bounced in an entertaining rivalry game at Washington in the quarterfinals. Behind key hustle players like E.J. Singler, Carlos Emory, and Arsalan Kazemi, Oregon continued its rise up the postseason ladder in the last year’s campaign. Compiling two streaks of five straight wins and one of eight consecutive victories, Altman’s squad put it all together in March, winning the Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas and pulling back-to-back upsets as a #12 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The run ended against top overall seed and eventual national champion Louisville in the Sweet Sixteen.

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Bennet Hayes is an RTC columnist. He can be reached @HoopsTraveler.

One of the many consequences of the past half-decade’s conference realignment frenzy has been the loss of cherished rivalries. Two seasons ago we saw our final Big 12 Border War, as Missouri bid farewell to old rival Kansas en route to the SEC. Last season we witnessed the final edition of Georgetown-Syracuse in the Big East, as the Orange split for the greener pastures of the ACC. And while the ACC will benefit from the arrival of Syracuse, Pitt and Notre Dame, the conference will still be losing what could be considered their rivalry of this century, as Maryland heads for the Big Ten next year, in the process leaving behind their bitter feud with Duke. Oh, the memories! And while many of these divorcees have vowed to reunite in non-conference series down the road, it’s hard to always take their word for it (although Georgetown and Syracuse are starting to sound pretty serious…). So goodbyes there have been, but what about the hellos? We have been made acutely aware of every dying rivalry (jumping conferences tends to elicit just a little bit of emotion from rival fan bases), but seemed to have forgotten that the reshuffling allows for the potential of plenty of new ones to emerge. Circumstance will have its way in molding many new rivalries (who, besides the man capable of seeing overtime before it happens, could have foreseen Louisville and Notre Dame carving out a nice little rivalry in the Big East?), but here’s a shot at five new conference match-ups with a shot at becoming annual headliners.

While Syracuse Bids Old Rival Georgetown Goodbye, Many New Rivalries Loom On The ACC’s Horizon For The Orange

Syracuse-Duke: Little explanation needed here. Two of the most decorated programs in the game led by two of the most iconic coaches in the sport’s history, and two teams that have been an annual factor in the national title chase for most of the last decade.  This season’s two favorites in the ACC should take an immediate shine to each other, and for some added fun, how about the contrast in home floors at play here? Needless to say, cozy Cameron Indoor will offer a slightly different stage for the match-up than the cavernous Carrier Dome will.

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