The First Round of the Big East Tourney Happened, Even Though You Couldn’t See It

So, this is how it ends for Georgetown: A 64-59 loss to St. John’s in the (expanded) first round of the Big East Tournament. It was their second loss to St. John’s in a week. Good to see the Hoyas made the most of a chance they would’ve never been given under the old Big East Tournament structure. ↵↵One team that did make the most of its opportunity today was lowly DePaul, which was 0-18 in the Big East regular season. They earned their first conference victory today, beating Cincinnati. ↵

↵↵And if you wanted to watch all of this sweet action, or either of tonight’s first round Big East games, well, you can’t. Unless you wanna watch in all the grainy, pixelated glory of a 3x3 inch video player on your laptop, courtesy of BigEast.tv. This is because the Big East expanded its tournament without a commitment from ESPN to carry the games. ESPN, of course, opted not to, and for great reason (via an ESPN spokesperson):↵

↵↵⇥“Our main Championship Week networks are packed with other commitments. The Big East was aware we didn’t commit to televising the games when they expanded the format.”↵↵Packed with commitments? Alrighty, let’s take a look. From Noon-5 today, the hours in which the first two games took place, ESPN aired SportsCenter three times, followed by Outside the Lines First Report, followed by Champions League Soccer. Fine, people like Champions League. But what about ESPN2? First Take, Best of Mike and Mike, NFL Live, Baseball Tonight. ESPNU? Replays of last night’s conference title games. ESPN Classic? Replays of, sigh, old Big East Tournament games. So, as you can see, no where to fit the first round of this year’s Big East Tournament.↵↵ESPNU will have full coverage of a college lacrosse game this evening, however, so there’s that. ↵

↵