MSG: Home of the Best Conference Tourney in America

I’m pretty sure in the past few weeks that I’ve made it quite apparent that I’m an ACC guy through and through. One of the things I love about the ACC, other than attending one of its schools, is that when it comes to basketball, no other conference in the country has more storied programs, more tradition and for most of the last century, more depth. But while the regular season is always intense and full of excitement, the one thing that ACC is lacking is a great conference tournament.

Yes, the ACC tournament is the first of its kind, but since Duke and North Carolina have basically taken ownership of it since the early 80s it has lost the intrigue that surround many of the other year-ending tournaments. Championship week is always entertaining and is the essence of what college basketball is all about. You have the small conference teams battling it out for their lone bid into the dance and for many of these schools winning their conference championship is as big a deal as winning the national title is to college basketball’s blue bloods like Kentucky, Kansas and Duke. Even better and more refreshing is seeing schools that have recently moved up to D1 or have been wallowing in mediocrity for decades and earn their first trip to the Big Dance.

But while all of the aforementioned things are great and are what make conference tournaments so compelling, if you don’t have time to watch the Woffords of the world make their inaugural entry into March Madness or don’t care to tune into the Big Sky championship and are simply looking for the best conference tournament in America all you have to do is look towards Madison Square Garden, home of the Big East tournament.

Before he was AI, he was a part of one of the best college basketball games of all time.

While the ACC expanded for the sake of football, the Big East countered with basketball moves and while the ACC’s play on the gridiron has been shoddy at best, the Big East’s decision has worked exactly according to plan. So not only have they become without question the best and deepest conference in America, their tournament has followed suit, harboring the most exciting basketball of the year.

But it wasn’t simply expansion that made this tournament the greatest in America, it has been that way for a while; it has just taken many people, including myself, a while to finally come to the realization, whether it be due to conference pride or simple ignorance. But while it may not be simply a result of expansion, adding more basketball-centric schools has only made it more readily apparent.

I first took notice of the spectacle that is the Beast tournament in 1996 when UCONN was supposed to take on Georgetown but instead one of the greatest games of one-on-one broke out, as a pre-cornrow Allen Iverson battled a pre-Jesus Shuttlesworth Ray Allen in what very well may be the greatest college basketball game I’ve ever seen. While both battled toe-to-toe for 39 and a half minutes, it was Ray Allen who eventually prevailed, after a tad more than two steps, with the body-twisting game winner.

Then last year I turned on the Syracuse-UCONN quarterfinal matchup with less than five minutes to go in the game and being the kind of person I am couldn’t turn it off until it was offer. Well the decision to stay up was either a blessing or a mistake, whichever way you look at it. I was exhausted the next day at work but may have been better off for witnessing one of the best games of the decade. The six overtime thriller was everything you could ask for in a basketball game and had everyone talking the next day. If there was a game no one deserved to lose and everyone left a winner, it was that one.

While I can't stand WVU, it was Butler who made me a true believer.

But even after all of the great games that have been played over the years, from Ewing’s dominance to Allen vs. Iverson to Gerry MacNamara’s heroics, I wasn’t ready to crown it simply because, like I have said a million times, I’m an ACC guy. But after watching West Virginia’s Da’Sean Butler hit a three off the glass to down Cincinnati on Thursday I couldn’t deny it any longer. It seems that every time I tune in I’m preparing to watch an instant classic. Then again last night WVU had Notre Dame in a hole before the Golden Domers made a valiant comeback and turned what looked to be a blowout into another fantastic finish before Butler and the Mountaineers again prevailed. Every game is a barnburner and it doesn’t get any better than that.

So while I watch Georgetown and WVU battle to be champion of the best tournament in college basketball, I figured it was only right to finally give the Big East its due. And while I’ve tried over the last 48 hours to figure out exactly why the Big East tournament year after year is head and shoulders above the rest I simply just realized it doesn’t really need an explanation because watching is enough. Maybe it’s because it’s played in the Garden, the greatest, most storied arena in the world. Maybe it’s because it’s composed of 16 of the best basketball schools in the country. Maybe it’s because the Big East values toughness and toughness is exactly what is needed to win in March. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s because the Big East is the best conference in the country and because of that it can’t possibly come up short when, like my boy ‘Pac said, all eyes are on them.