By Joe Parello
The Catholic Church may have just lost a Pope, but the "Catholic 7" basketball schools have gone on a crusade to take back the name "Big East," and make sure they get to play their conference tournament in the promised land of Madison Square Garden.
ESPN and USA Today are reporting that the seven Catholic, basketball minded schools (Does anyone else think it's hilarious that they call themselves basketball minded?) are now trying to separate from the Big East before next academic year, instead of in 2014 as previously planned. Those seven schools- Georgetown, Providence, St. John's, Seton Hall, Villanova, Marquette, and DePaul- are now expected to add Atlantic 10 powers Xavier and Butler, plus one other school rumored to be Creighton, to their ranks and form a formidable 10-team basketball conference.
Oh yeah, and they want to be called the Big East.
