Big East Men's Basketball Tournament

Big East Men's Basketball Tournament
Conference Basketball Championship
The 2008 Big East Men's Basketball Tournament trophy
Sport	College basketball
Conference	Big East Conference
Number of teams	16 (starting in 2009)
Format	Single-elimination tournament
Current stadium	Madison Square Garden
Current location	New York, New York
Played	1980-present
Last contest	2009 Big East Men's Basketball Tournament
Current champion	Louisville Cardinals
Most championships	Georgetown Hoyas (7)
Official website	BigEast.org Men's Basketball
Host stadiums
Madison Square Garden (1983-present) Hartford Civic Center (1982) Carrier Dome (1981) Providence Civic Center (1980)
Host locations
New York, New York (1983-present) Hartford, Connecticut (1982) Syracuse, New York (1981) Providence, Rhode Island (1980)

The Big East Men's Basketball Tournament determines the Big East Conference champion and the winner of the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Since 1983 the tournament has been held in Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York. In 2009, the Tournament showcased all 16 teams. Prior to the 2009 tournament, only the top 12 teams in the conference were eligible to compete.^[1] The tournament is the longest running conference tournament at any one site in all of college basketball. It is also the only tournament that has every single game carried on national TV by ESPN and ESPN2. Starting in 2005, all 11 games have been carried in high-definition.

Starting in 2009, the tournament will expand to include all 16 of the conference's teams. The teams finishing 9 through 16 in the regular season standings will play first round games, while teams 5 through 8 will receive a bye to the second round. The top 4 teams during the regular season will receive a bye to the quarterfinals.^[1]

The 2009 Tournament will be long remembered for "the game that wouldn't end"^[2] --a remarkable six overtime marathon in the quarterfinals between the University of Connecticut Huskies and the Syracuse Orange, where the Orange prevailed 127-117. The game---the second longest in NCAA history-- started on the evening of March 12 and ended nearly four hours later in the early morning of March 13.^[3]

Seeding

The sixteen seeds in the Big East tournament are linked to teams' conference records. Non-conference games are not a factor. The team with the overall best record in the conference is seeded "1", the next best conference record "2", and so on.

Ties are broken using an elaborate set of tiebreaker rules promulgated by the Big East conference. ^[4]

Generally, teams with the same conference records are then analyzed in their head-to-head matchups. The team with the better head-to-head record gets the higher seed. If the teams have equal head-to-head records, the tied teams' records are analyzed against the next best conference team.

Previous tournaments

Jeff Green of the Georgetown Hoyas attempts to pass during the 2007 Big East Championship game against the Pitt Panthers.

History of the tournament finals

Performance by school

Notes:
¹ Villanova joined the Big East prior to the 1981 season
² Pittsburgh joined the Big East prior to the 1982 season
³ Miami joined the Big East before the 1991 season
⁴ Notre Dame, Rutgers and West Virginia joined the Big East prior to the 1996 season
⁵ Virginia Tech joined the Big East prior to the 2001 season
⁶ Miami and Virginia Tech left the Big East following the 2004 season
⁷ Boston College left the Big East following the 2005 season
⁸ Cincinnati, DePaul, Louisville, Marquette and South Florida joined the Big East before the 2006 season

Television coverage

References