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Bring in Minnesota for the Gavitt Tipoff Games

RichardPitino

Providence and the rest of the Big East got a big lift on Monday with the announcement of the Gavitt Tipoff Games. The Big East and Big Ten announced today that they will partner to host this series beginning in 2015. The news was first reported by the Providence Journal’s Kevin McNamara.

The series, which will include eight games annually and will run through 2020, figures to be a huge boost for the Big East from an RPI, television ratings and image standpoint. Fox Sports will televise each of the games the Big East hosts, while ESPN’s Dana O’Neil reported the Big Ten home games will be showed on either the Big Ten Network or ESPN.

From O’Neil’s article:

The Big Ten and the Big East on Monday will announce a new partnership, the Gavitt Tipoff Games, an annual series of eight games between the two conferences that will run through 2020.

What separates this pairing from the others like it, though, is the timing. The games, which will begin in 2015-16, will be played in the first full week of the regular season, giving a splash to the tipoff for a sport that long has struggled to forge a path out of the gate.

“I remember Dave Gavitt used to say to me, ‘We sure know how to end a season with a bang, but we don’t do what we should in the beginning,” said Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany. “The Big East is relaunching itself. We are, in a way, relaunching ourselves. This is a great way to do that.”

Two games will be played on the first Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of the regular season, played at school home sites — four at a Big East school, four at a Big Ten school.

Each Big East team will play a minimum of six times during the length of the eight-year deal, and each Big Ten program will participate at least four times.

Individual match-ups will be announced in the spring.

FOX Sports1 will televise the Big East home games; ESPN or the Big Ten Network will carry the home Big Ten contests.

Looking for an ideal matchup for the Friars out of the gates? How about Richard Pitino and Minnesota coming to Friartown? Pitino, of course, is the son of Rick Pitino — the last coach to bring Providence to the Final Four — and he’s also a Providence College graduate and former manager of the basketball team. It would be fitting to bring in a coach with such ties to Providence, and the Gavitt family, in the first year of this event.

Whatever the matchup is in year one, this is a coup for the Big East. Questions about the future of the Big East only became louder after a poor showing in the reconfigured league’s first shot at the NCAA Tournament this March. Schools like Providence have had trouble scheduling high major opponents at home, and certainly from an RPI standpoint this figures to be a boost. The Big Ten has had a Final Four participant in six of the last seven years and finished this season with three teams ranked in the top 10 of the USA Today Coaches poll. They are traditionally ranked first or second in the RPI at season’s end.

The terrific Raphielle Johnson from College Basketball Talk broke the matchups down in great detail:

The question now is what the first match-ups will be. With Rutgers and Seton Hall having already agreed to an eight-year series following the splitting of the Big East, that’s one game we’re unlikely to see scheduled. But what about the possibility of getting Georgetown and Maryland on the same floor? Would the schools allow that to happen, given the fact that they’ve played so infrequently over the years?

Butler already plays either Indiana or Purdue annually thanks to the presence of the Crossroads Classic, a four-team event (Notre Dame being the fourth team) that will be played through 2016 at least. Creighton plays in-state foe Nebraska on an annual basis, and the same goes for Marquette/Wisconsin.

What happens with this Big East/Big Ten agreement in regards to the games remains to be seen, but this is a good move for both conferences. It will help with scheduling, and it also has the potential to set up some games that will help both teams when it comes to putting together quality NCAA tournament resumes.

 

 

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