NEW YORK – Syracuse Director of Athletics Jake Crouthamel breezed down a hallway in the Grand Hyatt Hotel here yesterday afternoon. He’d just exited a closed-door meeting of Big East presidents and athletics directors and sought a cigarette break before one of the biggest announcements of his 26-year tenure. A well-wisher momentarily sidetracked him and clasped his hand. As Crouthamel turned to walk away, a satisfied grin creased his wrinkled face.

Fifteen minutes later, at a press conference, Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese smiled similarly as he announced the addition of five Conference USA schools to the Big East.

Beginning in 2005, Louisville, Marquette, DePaul, South Florida and Cincinnati will play in the Big East. The conference will boast 16 teams, all of which will compete in basketball and only eight of which will compete in football. Consequently, Conference USA yesterday added five new members – Marshall, Central Florida, Southern Methodist, Tulsa and Central Florida – to replace those plucked by the Big East.

After the Big East press conference, Crouthamel praised the end of a six-month, conference-shuffling ordeal.

‘I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced a time in my life,’ he said, ‘where there’s been days when I’ve been so low and other days when I’ve been so high.’

At the closed-door meeting before the official announcement, the presidents and athletics directors unanimously voted to add the five Conference USA schools.

‘We were really pumped,’ Syracuse Chancellor Kenneth A. Shaw said. ‘There was a lot of back-slapping.’

The move makes the Big East arguably the nation’s strongest basketball conference. Seven of the 16 basketball teams scheduled to participate in 2005 are ranked in the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll. Louisville’s Rick Pitino and Cincinnati’s Bob Huggins join Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim and Connecticut’s Jim Calhoun among the Big East coaching elite.

‘On the basketball side, we’re just as good as anybody, any conference that’s ever been put together,’ Tranghese said. ‘For people who have been sitting on the sidelines for the Big East tournament, come 2006, I urge you to get your tickets soon, because it’s going to be a very special event.’

Big East officials chose Cincinnati, South Florida and Louisville because they are rising football schools, Crouthamel said. The fact that Cincinnati and Louisville are two of Conference USA’s best basketball schools was a coincidence, Crouthamel said.

The conference’s basketball structure is still undetermined, but Tranghese and Shaw said all the basketball teams will play each other at least once, if not twice.

‘We could have certain rivalries where we play some teams as a home-and-home (series),’ Shaw said. ‘That could be kind of fun. Beating up on each other is what it’s all about. That’s what makes teams better.’

The newly aligned conference could change the face of NCAA basketball. Tranghese thinks as many as nine teams could make the NCAA Tournament. In previous years – although there is no formal rule – the NCAA selection committee has never allowed more than seven teams from one conference. Each year, 34 teams receive at-large bids. Tranghese believes those bids should go to the best 34 teams not to win the conference tournament, regardless of conference affiliation. Last year, Syracuse, Connecticut, Pittsburgh and Notre Dame advanced to the Sweet 16. Newly acquired Marquette made the Final Four.

Of course, as a football conference, questions abound. Losing Virginia Tech, Miami and Boston College to the Atlantic Coast Conference after this season won’t crush the conference, but it will certainly set it back. Still, Tranghese and the current Big East athletics directors and presidents have high expectations for the incoming football schools. Louisville unofficially is No. 28 in the country, and Cincinnati and South Florida are up-and-coming teams. After this season, Temple is out of the conference.

‘With South Florida, it’s a case of its potential,’ Shaw said. ‘They could field an all-star team just of kids going to Tampa high schools.’

But there’s no guarantee the conference will continue its contract with the Bowl Championship Series when the deal expires after the 2005 season. With the addition of three football schools and Connecticut – which is currently independent and will join the league next season – the Big East can remain a football conference, since NCAA rules require eight members. But the BCS can sever its relationship with the Big East if the league is deemed too weak.

Still, Tranghese remained confident that the Big East will be included in the BCS, which currently doles out $12 to $14 million to the league every year.

‘We still remain one of the six strongest football conferences in the country,’ he said.

Some observers argued that, to sustain its football status, the Big East should lust after Notre Dame and Penn State.

‘To satisfy everyone,’ Crouthamel said, ‘Notre Dame would’ve had to of agreed to come into the conference. Penn State would’ve had to of agreed to come into the conference. But that was never going to happen.’

Tranghese said that when the Big East invited Notre Dame in the mid-’90s, Notre Dame wanted to continue its strong tradition as a football independent.

Now, the conference spreads farther west than South Bend, Ind. Marquette, in Milwaukee, DePaul, in Chicago, Louisville and Cincinnati all represent the Big East’s geographical expansion. South Florida, in Tampa, Fla., replaces Miami in the Big East’s Florida connection, keeping that television market. Shaw said the Midwestern representation opens up a new dimension for Syracuse recruiting, enrollment and fundraising.

If anything, the Big East’s headaches seem finished.

‘It’s going to be great to go to work tomorrow,’ Tranghese said. ‘This has been six months of a very difficult time. But it has probably brought our conference together and bonded a lot of people. Our presidents are probably closer than they’ve ever been, and I think our (athletics directors) have always been close. I just think if you were in our presidential meeting today, you could feel that effect.’

Published on November 4, 2003 at 12:00 pm