Did you ever think you'd get invited to the BE ?

[SJU87]

What was it like on campus and on your forums when you got invited ? Was their alot of media coverage ? Before you got into the Big East, what did you think of the league ?

[Xudash]

Yes, in Xavier's case.

Keep in mind that when the last round of major expansion occurred for the hybrid Big East, the basketball names that first surfaced were Marquette and Xavier.

After the dust had settled and it became Marquette and DePaul, it was learned that Tranghese wanted to appear to take the high road - versus how Swofford was perceived for attacking the BE - by "limiting" his raid to just one conference: C-USA. His protege also happened to be Linda Bruno, who was the inept commish of the A10 at the time. So, he could make himself appear "caring" while also protecting his protege from losing one of her flagship programs. Taking UC in football also most likely had some impact in all that.

At any rate, Xavier was positioning itself - through performance and investment - for years for a move up. I like how it has all worked out for us all and look forward to a very successful basketball-centric affiliation moving forward.

And, yes, there was a great deal of buzz and media coverage on campus. Again, this had been a long sought goal for Xavier. Everyone soaked it up when it finally became a reality.

[anXUfan]

Xavier was either going to be in the Big East or build a sufficient facsimile around itself.

[bmorex]

I was anticipating a basketball/football split in the Big East ever since 2010 when I began to follow conference realignment closely. I knew Xavier would be one of the first calls that the Catholic basketball schools would make.

The time between December-March this past year was very surreal.

[Bulldog_Muskie]

It was kinda weird for Butler since this will be their third conference in as many years. Getting into the A10 was big just because we were out of the horizon league and could actually play somewhat known teams in conference. Moving to the BE just tripled that excitement. I clearly remember reading an article in 2011 I think that briefly mentioned the possibility of the C7 splitting and inviting schools like X and Butler. I definitely didn't expect it to happen so soon but I'm sure glad it did!

[BoarCommaThe]

When it became a reality that this was going to happen for Creighton, lots of the fan base was down in St Louis for the Missouri Valley Conference tournament. There was a ton of buzz and nostalgia going on that this would be the last trip to St Louis to win the 'Creighton Invitational" but moving on up to join the big boys of college basketball. It was a very exciting time during the month of March when this all went down.

As far as buzz goes, the fan base couldn't be any more excited to see what this new league holds.

[gmoser1210]

A lot of people at Butler saw the Big East split as inevitable. Given the Bulldogs' success and steady growth since the mid-90s, and especially since 2007, many of us thought it was an attainable goal to join with some of the better non-FBS schools in the country, including those from the Big East when it imploded.