NEW YORK – If you missed the press conference yesterday afternoon here at the Grand Hyatt, you missed an exciting moment in the Big East’s history. Excitement overwhelmed the hotel as people said exciting things about the conference’s exciting future.

In fact, officials talked so much about how excited they were, I couldn’t tell if they called the press conference to announce their excitement or to introduce five new members to the conference.

‘As I stand here before you today,’ Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese said, ‘I can’t express to you how excited we are about our future and, in particular, the five new schools that our presidents unanimously voted to extend invitations to.’

Eventually, after all the exciting build-up, Tranghese introduced Louisville, Cincinnati, South Florida, Marquette and DePaul – all, of course, in exciting fashion.

One board member even allowed himself to get (ITALICS)very(ITALICS) excited, which, under the circumstances, spread excitement throughout the room.

‘Today we are very excited about our future,’ Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark Nordenberg said. ‘We’re excited about our new conference partners, five academically ambitious universities with the potential to compete at the very highest levels of intercollegiate athletics.’

Exciting indeed.

Members of the media were slightly less excited about the Big East adding five teams. But they were still very excited about this announcement finally coming after weeks of speculation and waiting. And writing about the speculation and waiting.

Today, the excitement has died down. The new Big East, set to take shape beginning in the 2005-06 season, is much Bigger but less East. Overall, the league is in decent shape, adding three men’s basketball teams – No. 23 Marquette, No. 20 Cincinnati and No. 16 Louisville – ranked in the preseason Top 25 and two football teams – Cincinnati and Louisville – which made bowl games last season.

‘On the basketball side,’ Tranghese said, ‘those of you who know me, I never say we’re the best, but we’re clearly as good as anybody, any conference that’s ever been put together.’

Tranghese is right, of course. He, like many Big East athletics directors, teems with excitement about Big East basketball. In fact, with so many good teams, the Big East may find trouble finding NCAA Tournament invitations for all its worthy teams. Usually, six teams per conference make the tournament.

But yesterday was Excitement Day – perhaps, sometime soon, a national holiday – and talk about oversaturated basketball conferences and one must squash the possibility of great teams slamming each other.

Fair enough. Excitement for basketball is warranted. But when Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College departed for the Atlantic Coast Conference, much hysteria surrounded the Big East’s football future.

The Big East added three football teams. Aside from the two bowl teams, South Florida, which finished 9-2 last season, will hop aboard the S.S. Excitement. Which makes the Big East a nice, mediocre football conference. Nothing to get excited about.

After all, the conference, while still probably the sixth best in the nation, doesn’t deserve an automatic Bowl Championship Series bid when the current contract expires after the 2005 season. The NCAA should open an at-large spot for a worthy team from a lower-profile conference, like Marshall, or second team, like Florida State or Virginia Tech, from a great football conference. A 7-5 Pittsburgh team playing in the Sugar Bowl surely sullies the national college football scene.

But, again, we must, like Pontiac, feel the excitement. Tranghese sure does. Perhaps the three new schools will benefit from Big East membership, like Virginia Tech did. The Hokies became a national power after joining the Big East in 1991. South Florida, after all, sits in a high school football gold mine. Now that it’s in a major-conference, it may attract more talent. As I type, the excitement is almost too much to bear.

Also, ignore the the impending revenue loss after the Big East restructures its football TV contract. But ABC and ESPN no doubt feel excited about a stunning basketball conference, which may produce enough new TV-contract money to counteract potential football revenue losses.

‘You know what the thing is,’ Tranghese said, ‘is that everybody looks at what’s going to happen tomorrow. What our presidents say is, ‘Let’s talk about where we’re going to be three years from now, five years from now.’ ‘

Most refuse to wait that long. The excitement is too unbearable.

Scott Lieber is an assistant sports editor at The Daily Orange, where his columns appear regularly. E-mail him at smlieber@syr.edu.

Published on November 4, 2003 at 12:00 pm