Louisville loses Wayne Blackshear for the season

[Hoopaloop]

Bad break for them.  Tough week in general for Louisville

http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-basketball/story/2011-10-29/louisville-loses-touted-freshman-wayne-blackshear

[Dr. Blackheart]

Tough break for the Cards...I thought they could win the BE with their deep and balanced team...but they needed him to get over the top as he is a stud. I think Cuse wins the BE going away now.

[brewcity77]

I still think it will be close between Louisville and Syracuse. UL finished ahead of 'Cuse last year and is also bringing in Chane Behanan. Maybe it's just that I like Syracuse less, with their backstab ACC move, but when you return 8 guys that played double-digit minutes, have the best PG in the league, and are adding a McD's stud, you should have a pretty good team.

[Hoopaloop]

Hard to blame Syracuse.  The Big East is dead, or at the very least a shadow of what it used to be.  They did what we would have done if we had football and were offered a solid footing in a solid conference.

[Skatastrophy]

Hard to blame Syracuse.  The Big East is dead, or at the very least a shadow of what it used to be.  They did what we would have done if we had football and were offered a solid footing in a solid conference.

+1, I'm jealous that they had options.  It's always better to be the dumper than the dumpee.

[cheebs09]

Was it dead before Pitt and Cuse left? We had TCU coming in and by my recollection, this round of realignment began with the Pitt and Cuse jump.

[brewcity77]

Was it dead before Pitt and Cuse left? We had TCU coming in and by my recollection, this round of realignment began with the Pitt and Cuse jump.

I would definitely say the answer to that was no. TCU was on their way in and the league seemed to feel it had a viable enough product in both sports to merit opening bidding up to networks beyond just ESPN. A few underhanded deals later and Pitt and Cuse were on their way out.

This league was not a "shadow of what it used to be" when they left. The 2010-11 Big East was one of the best conferences in the history of college basketball. The Big East has a much better BCS record than the ACC does. ESPN didn't want to lose rights to the best basketball conference in the country, the ACC didn't want to upset ESPN (and saw dollar signs if they could renegotiate their TV deal), and Pitt and Syracuse were afraid they wouldn't get a better offer if they stuck around.

Their departure put this league in the state it's in now. It sounds like we could have added Navy and either Army or Air Force, and had we gotten two of them, there would have been a renegotiation to the out-clause that included forfeiture of future television rights, as football would be more profitable with a conference championship game. WVU would still be here if this had come to pass, simply because the out-clause that would have been negotiated (instead of the crappy $10M one) would have actually prevented them from leaving.