When Larry Brown and SMU join the Big East in 2013, Jim Boeheim and Syracuse will likely be playing their first season in the ACC.
So the two legendary coaches likely won’t get to match up during Big East play, and Brown says the league will never adequately replace Syracuse — or Pittsburgh, which is also leaving for the ACC.
“I don’t know if you could ever duplicate what Boeheim’s done or what [Pittsburgh coach] Jamie [Dixon]’s done and [former Pitt] Coach [Ben] Howlands’s done, but those other programs are pretty darn good,” Brown told SNY.tv.
When SMU does join the Big East in 2013, they will enter along with Memphis, Temple, Houston and UCF, bringing the league to 18 basketball teams.
“There’s some great teams, there are some up and coming teams,” Brown, 71, said. “Memphis and Temple are two unbelievable programs.”
Brown’s goal since taking over in April is to get the Mustangs ready for their entrance into a Big East that will still feature traditional league powers UConn, Louisville, Georgetown, Villanova, Marquette and Notre Dame along with the new entrants.
As covered in my earlier story, Brown has already secured transfers Josiah Turner (Arizona) and Crandall Head (Illinois) and is involved with uncommitted 2012 wing Savon Goodman as well as the Harrison twins, Aaron and Andrew, in the Class of 2013.
“We got a long way to go,” Brown said. “You don’t mention SMU like you mention Georgetown or Villanova or Connecticut or Louisville. So if we can just recruit around this state [Texas] and around this city [Dallas] we can compete with anybody and that’s going to be our goal.”
