Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 9, 1994 TAG: 9403090055
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Sources have said presidents of the league's 10 basketball-playing schools are expected to meet today or tomorrow to decide the Big East's puzzler - whether to expand to 14 teams by adding Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Rutgers and Temple or risk those four and Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Boston College and Miami splitting to form their own eight-team all-sports league.
A presidents' meeting Feb. 25 in Boston produced no vote, apparently because not all presidents attended. That is not expected to occur again.
"There's going to be a vote on 14," said Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese, who would not confirm when the meeting will be held. "I don't know what the vote's going to be."
A gag order by league presidents has limited information about their intentions, but not speculation.
One source familiar with the league said the Big East's basketball-only schools - Georgetown, St. John's, Seton Hall, Connecticut, Providence and Villanova - will kill expansion if they can get Notre Dame and/or Marquette to join them in a seven- or eight-team league. If they can't, they'll vote for expansion.
"That's the newest [rumor]," Marquette athletic director Bill Cords said. "I really can't comment on anything. As far as I know, there's nothing to comment on."
Two weeks ago, Connecticut was thought to be the swing vote for or against expansion. Bill Raftery, a former Seton Hall coach who works as a college basketball announcer for CBS and ESPN, said Tuesday that St. John's has migrated from "vehemently" against expansion to "not-so-vehement" to "unsure."
Raftery said he only recently became aware of published reports that the basketball-only schools had offered a compromise expansion scenario in which the Big East would add West Virginia and Rutgers to create a 12-team basketball league.
In a 14-team league, the eight Division I football schools theoretically could hold sway over the six basketball-only schools. The 12-team scenario would create two six-school voting blocs.
That scenario assumed that Virginia Tech and Temple, although left out of the basketball picture, would remain in the Big East for football because they would have no other all-sports home.
Tranghese and Tech athletic director Dave Braine dismissed that report.
"When we first started the process, I think every conceivable scenario was talked about," Tranghese said. "That was talked about two months ago, and was done very briefly. The four football schools in this league fully intend to have a vote taken on 14. I have not heard any one of those presidents talk about anything but 14."
Braine said he wasn't surprised to hear talk of Tech's and Temple's exclusion, considering that the same thing happened before the Big East formed its eight-team football league in 1991, of which Tech and Temple are charter members.
"I'm sure there's some animosity toward Virginia Tech and Temple," he said. "I anticipated something like that might happen.
"I do not think the football schools would allow that to happen to us."
Braine also noted that Tech was an easier target three years ago, when neither its basketball teams nor its football team were big winners.
"At one time, they could look down their noses at us because we didn't have a good program," he said. "I think we dispelled that in football [9-3 and a bowl victory last season]. The way things are today, it looks like both our men's and women's basketball teams are going to go to postseason. [They] can't look down their noses and say, `They're just a bunch of country bumpkins and they don't have a good program,' because we do."
If the Big East expands or if a new eight-team league is formed, the Atlantic 10 would lose WVU, Temple and Rutgers. A source said the Atlantic 10 would pursue Xavier of Ohio and LaSalle as replacements.
by CNB