Looking back, it's little surprising that there was unforgettable basketball in the first year of the Big East. That year in the early 1980s was when a college basketball coach first became a star for himself.
They were not all in the Big East. North Carolina and Dean Smith had Jimmy V on the roads of Chapel Hill. Bob Knight is in Bloomington, Indiana, and Jerry Talcanian has won 25 games in 26 games a year in Las Vegas. Denny Crum was king of Louisville. Guy V. Lewis had a checkered towel in Houston.
But there was a coaching star in the Big East, and it was brighter than anyone else. Four of them landed in the Hall of Fame of Lou Carnesecca, Jim Boeheim, John Thompson and Laurie Masimino. They are great coaches and even better salesmen, and through their eyes and talent, Big East became the three of them 40 years ago this month: the King of Sports, Lua, Laurie and Big John. And as if to do a little more, those games were played in the Blue Blood Basketball Cradle at the Lap Arena in Lexington, Kentucky.
There were others who came later — Jim Calhoun, Pete Gillen and Gary Williams — expanded their High Wattage lineup. However, four people planted the seeds.
