Big East Basketball: Key storylines emerging early in 2023-24 season

2. Near brawls and drama with Seton Hall and Providence

The Big East also saw trouble in paradise with Providence and a near flare-up in Newark with Shaheen Holloway and Seton Hall.

To start with the Friars, punches were thrown in the Bahamas during the Kansas State game, which led to two players getting ejected. Garwey Dual of Providence and Dai Dai Ames of Kansas State were removed from the contest after Ames and Dual kept making contact with each other, and it finally blew up with Dual throwing a punch at Ames.

Providence Kim English was seen holding back Ames, and the scuffle was broken up but it was almost got worse fast. The Friars went on to lose that neutral site game in a competitive matchup, but that was not the only drama.

Seton Hall and Wagner played their usual non-conference game this year and the Pirates won convincingly, but the handshake line is where the story of the game went down. Head coach of Wagner, and former Seton Hall player and assistant coach with Holloway, Donald Copeland got into an argument with Holloway after the game.

There was a foul by Wagner with 19 seconds left that Holloway did not take a liking to, and there was a clear heated discussion all caught on the game feed. Holloway ended up yanking Copeland’s arm away, the the two had to be separated before it got worse.

So, the Big East created quite a bit of buzz this week, except the games themselves were not the biggest stories in these cases.