Commissioner Val Ackerman
NEW YORK -- Highlighted by the celebration of the league’s 40
th anniversary, BIG EAST leaders held a series of meetings in the last 10 days to reflect on the past, monitor the present and plan for the future. The stretch began with the conference’s annual summer meetings in Ponte Vedra, FL and concluded with a regularly scheduled meeting of BIG EAST Presidents in Providence, R.I.
On May 29
th, Commissioner Val Ackerman hosted an evening reception in Providence, R.I., the league’s headquarters until 2013, to celebrate the BIG EAST’s founding in 1979 and its enduring prominence as a Division I conference. Three moderated panels recounted the building of the league, its meteoric rise in its first decade, and its current strong standing through six years in its current 10-school configuration.
Panelists included Dan Gavitt, the NCAA Senior Vice President of Basketball; former BIG EAST Commissioner Mike Tranghese; former Georgetown player and current Hoya coach Patrick Ewing; Larry Jones, Executive Vice President of FOX Sports; Joel Fisher, Executive Vice President of Marquee Events and Operations of Madison Square Garden; Rev. Brian Shanley, President of Providence College; Rev. Michael Graham, President of Xavier University; Kathy Meehan, Deputy AD at St. John’s; Ed Cooley, Providence College head coach; and Bill Raftery and Donny Marshall, college basketball color analysts. Closing remarks were delivered by Georgetown President John DeGioia.
At the conference’s Board of Directors meeting on the 30
th, the Presidents received a report from FOX Sports’ Larry Jones on the ever-changing sports television landscape and FOX’s plans for BIG EAST coverage for the upcoming year. With FOX and the BIG EAST at the halfway point of their 12-year agreement, viewership on FS1 for men’s basketball continues to grow, and national network television coverage exceeds that of any other Division I conference. FOX is expected to continue with innovative game presentation and its unique all-access production during selected games next season.
The Presidents also heard reports on the conference’s continuing successes on the hardwood. During the 2018-19 athletic season, all 10 men’s basketball teams reached the postseason for the first time in conference history: four teams received NCAA Tournament bids, five were in the NIT and one played in the CBI. Two women’s teams made the NCAAs, while five more squads made the WNIT. In all, 17 of the 20 BIG EAST basketball programs competed in the postseason.
The conference also reviewed plans for the 2019 Gavitt Tipoff Games with the Big Ten (which enters its fifth year); the league’s new scheduling alliance with the Big 12 (which starts in December); and the continuing successful partnership with Madison Square Garden, now in its 38
th year, which was strengthened last December when the BIG EAST and MSG extended their agreement to host the BIG EAST Tournament by two years, through 2028.
The Board was also given an update on the BIG EAST’s selection by the NCAA and USA Basketball to participate in the 2019 Pan American Games in Games in Lima, Peru, July 31-August 4, the first time a team from a single Division l conference will represent the U.S. in men’s basketball in Pan Am competition. Providence coach Ed Cooley will serve as the team’s head coach, with Seton Hall’s Kevin Willard as the lead assistant coach.
In women’s basketball, the league will conduct its third consecutive championship tournament at Wintrust Arena in Chicago in 2020.
Finally, a basketball technology working group has been established to investigate the ever-growing array of innovative and services available to the conference and member institutions.
Other topics addressed included diversity and inclusion, esports, sports betting, NCAA legislative proposals, and various long-range planning matters. Ackerman also reported that BIG EAST school and conference administrators are serving on a record 37 NCAA Committees. Ackerman is co-chair of the recently formed NCAA Board of Governors Federal and State Legislation Working Group regarding names, images and likenesses (NIL). Georgetown President John DeGioia is serving on the NCAA D-I Board of Directors and NCAA Board of Governors and is the BOG liaison with the NIL working group.
Academically, it was noted that a record 67 BIG EAST athletic teams were recognized by the NCAA with Public Recognition Awards for outstanding academic achievement, the highest total in the conference’s current 10-school configuration. To receive the award, teams must compile scores in the top 10 percent of their sport, based on their most recent Academic Progress Rates (APR).
Butler President James Danko’s term as Chair of the BIG EAST Board of Directors was extended through the 2019-20 academic year.
Ackerman also presided over the annual BIG EAST spring meeting May 20-22 in Ponte Vedra, Fla., with directors of athletics, senior woman administrators, men’s and women’s head basketball coaches and senior conference staff. In addition to senior executives from FOX Sports, guests included Stan Wilcox, NCAA Executive Vice President for Regulatory Affairs; Lynn Holzman, NCAA Vice President of Women’s Basketball; JoAn Scott, NCAA Managing Director of the Men’s Basketball Championship; and Charnele Kempner, NCAA Director of Academic and Membership Affairs.