Breaking Down The Big East 2012-13 Basketball Schedule

The 2012-13 college basketball season will be the last hurrah for the Big East as fans have come to know it.

With two Big East bulwarks halfway out the door and a slew of lesser basketball programs queued up to take their place, the league that had emerged as the premiere club in college hoops will soon take on a new look. The conference is trading in Ralph Lauren suits for sweats and wrinkled t-shirts, embracing, out of necessity, a new outfit that will be a big step down in terms of basketball appeal.

In the meantime, Big East fans will get one final peak at departing members Syracuse and Pittsburgh. The Orange and Panthers will play out the string in this, their lame duck season, before shifting the balance of power in college hoops to the ACC. Syracuse and Pitt will hand off the baton to Conference USA defectors Houston, SMU and UCF, which will replace the two longtime Big East members in basketball beginning in 2013.

West Virginia has already packed up and fled the Big East, taking its athletics programs and a hefty buyout fee to the Big 12. So you won’t see the Mountaineers on the 2012-13 Big East schedule, which the league unpacked in full on Wednesday. You will, however, see plenty of Jim Boeheim and Jamie Dixon as their programs make their farewell tours through the pilfered league.

Enjoy it while you can, folks. The diminished quality of the basketball league will never recover.

National Coverage

Of the 135 Big East games on the docket this season, 75 (56-percent) will be nationally televised. And of those nationally televised games, more than 90-percent will feature at least one team that made the NCAA tournament last season. Nearly 80-percent of Big East games overall will include at least one such team.

The Big East is the only conference that will be featured on ESPN’s College Gameday twice this season. On Feb. 9, the Gameday crew will be on site for either Louisville at Notre Dame or Pittsburgh at Cincinnati. Safe money is on the Gameday crew ending up in South Bend. College Gameday will close out the year March 9 in the nation’s capital for the last-ever meeting between Syracuse and Georgetown as Big East rivals.

Toughest Schedule: Louisville

Fresh off an unlikely Final Four appearance and with lots of talent either coming back or coming in for the first time, the Cardinals are justifiably the league’s preseason favorite. The Big East is asking them to prove it. Louisville owns the toughest set of repeat opponents of any team in the conference. Rick Pitino’s bunch will play the top two challengers for conference supremacy twice:  Syracuse and Notre Dame. The Cardinals also draw the Pirates and Bulls two times apiece, which is no easy assignment. Although the program lost cornerstone players Jordan Theodore and Herb Pope to graduation, Seton Hall brings back a young nucleus of talent headlined by sharpshooters Fuquan Edwin and Aaron Cosby. South Florida, meanwhile, returns its best player in point guard Anthony Collins, do-everything forward Victor Rudd and 3-point specialist Toarlyn Fitzpatrick. The Bulls were the most surprising team in the Big East last season—finishing 12-6 in-conference and advancing to the NCAA tournament round of 32—thanks to their stifling defense. While USF won’t be as good defensively without Augustus Gilchrist manning the paint, the Bulls will be no less of a challenge for the ‘Ville assuming they naturally improve with experience, as expected, on the offensive end.

In addition to the daunting home-and-home slate, Louisville also has tough road assignments at Georgetown as well as up-and-coming Rutgers.

Easiest Schedule: Connecticut

UConn is ineligible for both the 2012-13 Big East tournament and the NCAA tournament thanks to low APR test scores that resulted in steep NCAA sanctions. So, as a tacky consolation prize, the Big East tried to throw UConn a small bone. The league awarded the Huskies the league’s easiest schedule, presumably aware that their wins this season count for nothing. UConn owns double dates with Cincinnati, DePaul, Providence and South Florida. Two of UConn’s repeat opponents, DePaul and Providence, finished last and next-to-last, respectively, in the league last season. Connecticut is one of just two Big East programs (Marquette being the other) that avoids at least one home-and-home with Louisville, Syracuse or Notre Dame, the top-three preseason teams in the conference. UConn also draws Louisville and Syracuse, arguably the two toughest foes on its schedule, at home. This will be the third straight year the Huskies and Orange hook up in Storrs, the only such time this season a school has to play on the road at an opponent for the third straight year.

Honorable Mention: Marquette. The Golden Eagles own double dates with Georgetown, Pitt, Seton Hall and USF. Marquette also draws Syracuse and Notre Dame, two of the league’s top-three preseason teams, at home.