David Woods/IndyStar
One 3-point shot cannot override more than three decades of college basketball history. For a reconstituted Big East, though, it was, well, big.
Villanova’s 77-74 victory over North Carolina in Monday’s NCAA championship game was celebrated not only on the Wildcats’ campus, but at universities from South Orange, N.J., to Omaha, Neb.
“The Big East is back, baby,” was the collective voice of 10 schools pushing back against the notion that football rules all. Perception caught up with reality: the Big East is a power conference, even without the likes of Syracuse, Connecticut and Pittsburgh.