MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia could be on the verge of basketball throwback games against Villanova, Georgetown, St, John’s and Providence, though athletics director Shane Lyons tells MetroNews a Big 12/Big East basketball series is “still conceptual.”
Iowa State AD Jamie Pollard revealed this week the leagues have discussed a scheduling alliance, which conceivably could start during the 2019-20 season.
Such discussions are in response to the Big Ten expanding its conference schedule from 18 games to 20 next season and the ACC doing the same in 2019-20. Various industry sources expect the SEC and Pac-12 to follow suit.
Expansion of those league schedules curbs opportunities for nonconference matchups against the Big 12 and Big East, each of whom are locked into 18-game round-robins with 10 member schools. That could dent the strength-of-schedule metrics for the Big 12 and and Big East, which ranked 1-2 in conference RPI last season.
“If the other bigger basketball leagues go to 20 conference games, it would be difficult to get some quality games against Power 5 teams in our nonconference scheduling,” Lyons said.
With the SEC/Big 12 Challenge in January expected to continue, a potential series against the Big East would make sense in December. Plus, it would stoke nostalgia for West Virginia, which capped a 17-year run in the Big East in 2012.
“It could benefit us because of some of the old rivalries we’ve had with the Big East schools,” Lyons said.
The Big East has enjoyed a resurgence of late by adding Xavier, Butler and Creighton to seven holdover members from conference realignment.