Mike Tranghese’s opening statements at Big East Media Day surprised many by the defiance and defensiveness of them.

“Everybody keeps telling me we’re too big,” Tranghese said before a hushed group of coaches, players, administrators and reporters. “Let’s understand this. Everybody in America is too big, because basketball was intended to be played in double round-robin format. The ACC doesn’t do it. The SEC doesn’t do it. The Big 12 doesn’t do it. The Big Ten doesn’t do it, and we haven’t done it since the early ’90s. So we’re all too big. We just happen to be a little bigger than others.

“We’re not going to fail,” Tranghese said. “But we’re not going to simply succeed because we’re 16. Sixteen presents a number of problems, and we’re going to be aggressive in dealing with them. But this whole notion that we’re too big is nonsense, because three years ago we were 14 and I didn’t hear anyone saying we were too big.”
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Then the commissioner took on the most passionate issue of the day: The potentially divisive effect of the schools’ conflicting football priorities. Some play Division I-A football, some Division I-AA and some no football at all.

“I keep hearing the question, ‘Are we going to survive?’ ” Tranghese said. “Let me tell you the people who don’t think we’re going to survive. One, those that don’t understand what this is all about. … And secondly, people who don’t want it to survive. And there are a lot of them out there.

“The only way this thing won’t survive,” Tranghese said, “is if these coaches can’t coach and recruit, and if I screw up. They ain’t going to screw up, because this league has always been successful because of our basketball coaches.”

I guess he’s sick of answering the questions. The problem for Tranghese is that they aren’t going to go away. The conference exists because of basketball, but every move to add programs was driven by a defensive reaction regarding football.

Another article asks a bunch of questions, including who the sleeper team in the Big East is.

There is one every year. Look at West Virginia last season. Providence two years ago. Syracuse, which won the national championship, three seasons ago after beginning the year unranked.

So who will it be this year?

Let’s look at the middle of the Big East pack. Pittsburgh. Notre Dame. Cincinnati. Georgetown. St. John’s.

It’ll probably come from one of those five teams.

“Of course St. John’s, of course,” Red Storm junior forward Lamont Hamilton said. “We’re hoping to leave the past.”

Two years ago, the Johnnies practically blew up their program, went 1-15 in the Big East and was mired in scandal.

Pitt is another team that could surprise. The Panthers lose inside presences Chevon Troutman and Chris Taft, but return all-conference guard Carl Krauser.

“Pittsburgh,” junior center Aaron Gray chimed in when another player was asked about potential surprising teams.

We can hope.

One article makes an interesting point. There is no longer a true “Big East style of play.”

But it doesn’t have a style. And if one were to uncover some obscure common thread among the likes of Syracuse and Connecticut, Louisville and Cincinnati, Georgetown and St. John’s, West Virginia and Pitt, it certainly wouldn’t be what is commonly perceived as the traditional Big East style of play.

“No. Not at all,” said Rick Pitino, a Big East coach nearly 20 years ago at Providence who is now back in the league with Louisville. “I don’t think when you have 16 teams there is a style. West Virginia has their style, Pitt has theirs, St. John’s has theirs. Cincinnati has their style, Connecticut. The league is not like it was where it was a very physical league and Georgetown came in and threw people around. It’s not that way anymore.”

Indeed, if this were still a league dominated by physical inside presence and almost a football-like mentality, Villanova would not have edged out Connecticut and been chosen as the preseason favorite at Wednesday’s Big East media day at Madison Square Garden. That’s a team that, thanks to last week’s knee injury suffered by Curtis Sumpter, could start four guards.

In fact, take a look at the top five teams in the preseason poll. From among Villanova, Connecticut, Louisville, Syracuse and West Virginia, only Connecticut returns anything resembling a true post player from last season in 6-foot-10, 237-pound junior Josh Boone. And even he plays much of his time on the wing.

No, the Big East style is now a menagerie of offenses and defenses and tempos.
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“From a coaching and scouting standpoint, how many different styles can you prepare for?” [Notre Dame Coach Mike] Brey said. “For example, we play West Virginia on the road on a Wednesday and Louisville on the road on [the following] Saturday. Now those are two different preparations in four days.

“But as a fan, you’ve got to check it out. It’s going to be [a matter of] what style wins out.”

The influx of Louisville, Cincinnati, Marquette, DePaul and South Florida will only accentuate the differences among the league’s teams.

Very true, yet look at the conference the last few years. Leaving aside the NCAA Tournament, the teams that have been dominate have been in the traditional inside physical BE teams — Pitt, UConn, Syracuse and BC.