Temple Of Basketball For Big East

The possible inclusion of Temple, perhaps as soon as next season as a replacement for West Virginia, may actually be a bigger coup for Big East basketball than football, even though former Cheshire High coach Steve Addazio, who followed Al Golden when he left for Miami, has the Owls moving up the charts.

What it would mean for women’s basketball is the inclusion of former UConn assistant and Temple coach Tonya Cardoza in the Big East, giving Auriemma two branches of his coaching tree in the league [Jamelle Elliott at Cincinnati].

The Owls are 19-8 (12-1 in the Atlantic-10) and are on a 12-game winning streak. In her fourth season, Cardoza appears to be a rising star. Temple is 89-36 on her watch.

In her third season in Cincinnati, Elliott is having a transforming season. The Bearcats (15-12, 6-8) have won four straight conference games, six of their last seven. They play West Virginia Saturday in Cincinnati.

“We have a head of steam going at the perfect time of the year,” Elliott said after beating Marquette Tuesday. “To really, really, really come out and play the type of basketball we have been playing for the last seven games, I couldn’t be happier at the time of the year we are really peaking.”

Without a replacement for West Virginia, the Big East would be left with only 15 teams next season, which would cause some scheduling issues – all easily resolvable, of course.

Seems to me, the conference could just plug Temple into the Mountaineers spot in the home-and-away rotation and pick up where it left off, creating a neat home-and-home with Villanova in the process.

If that’s the case, in terms of how the schedule for next season might play out, the Huskies would be due to play Temple in Philadelphia.

And you know what that means – the cheesesteaks are on Geno!