Big East Moves Its Tournament to Villanova; Spite Rules!

You didn't think that the Big East would just let Syracuse walk into the ACC and, with Notre Dame, potentially dynamite the conference's without some retribution, right? (If you did, I'd like to introduce you to a concept called "spite": It's like a beautiful delicate flower that gives off the aroma of cyanide.)

As announced yesterday, the Big East is moving its 2013 men's tournament from the Carrier Dome to Villanova University (the site of the league's inaugural tournament in 2012). The semifinals will take place on May 2nd with the title game on May 4th. I'd crib some language from the press release, but it just basically reads, "We moved the tournament because we said so."

This raises two interesting issues. First, how are Syracuse fans dealing with the news? The Orange are surprisingly indifferent, actually:

It's the kind of thing that, on paper, we should be annoyed by. But you know what? Fair enough. I get why the conference doesn't want to give us any financial incentives and would rather take care of one of its remaining members. Whatever.

Second, will the revolution be Groupon'd again? It's not like Villanova drew like crazy for the tournament last season, but as I wrote previously:

Where the hell else are you going to host this thing? South Bend and Syracuse are outposts for the conference membership, St. John's doesn't have capacity to host an event of this caliber (unless they moved it up to Hofstra), Providence may or may not be a real place in these United States of America, and nobody cares about anything at Georgetown or than telling people that they are associated to Georgetown. Rutgers would be a solid alternative, but would the league really feel comfortable letting the Scarlet Knights host with little chance of the home team actually participating in the tournament? That's suspect.