Monday morning tipped off another round of conference changes, as often happens on that date, and this year the changes were quite seismic. The Great West Conference is now defunct, the Patriot League has ten members, and most of all, the American Athletic Conference officially opened for business and the Big East has a whole new look. And for the new Big East, the start has not been particularly auspicious.
The conference’s new start has been slowed largely by the drawn-out process of hiring a commissioner. Val Ackerman is a solid selection, but the lateness of the hire left her little time to start assembling a staff before the change occurred on Monday. A trip to the conference Web site reflects that: as of Saturday morning, there was only the main page and links to the school sites and the conference’s social media accounts.
That’s a problem that in theory will be rectified in due time. While fall sports will start before you know it, this isn’t the worst time to be short-staffed. It’s never ideal, but if today was September 6 instead of July 6, the discussion is very different. Not only that, but a lot of other things are in place already, such as a TV contract, so the conference in theory should be ready to get up and running once a staff is in place.
On Wednesday, the conference took a hit with one of its newest members. Brad Stevens accepted the offer to become the next head coach of the Boston Celtics after six seasons as the head basketball coach at Butler. Stevens has an impeccable resume from his time in Indianapolis, and his departure is a hit to the school and all of college basketball even though both will be fine. It’s also a hit to the new Big East in its early days, as one of its signature coaches moves on.
While Butler should be fine, the timing is far from ideal given that this is another step up for Butler. It also hits the Big East because rather than adding one more great coach, it will be adding a school with a new head coach. Stevens’ departure will probably not register in the context of the Big East by the time school starts, let alone the season, but right at this moment the timing isn’t great from the conference standpoint since the conference has been slow to get fully up and running.
It’s only the first week, and with the Big East name there is already a brand associated with it given the history, so this isn’t exactly a bad first impression and probably won’t do anything resembling long-term damage. But the first week in the new-look Big East won’t go down as one for the books when it’s all said and done. Fortunately for the conference, it will surely be a very distant memory come September and ultimately November, when the basketball games begin. That will ultimately be what matters the most to fans.
