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NCAA Outsider's Jeff Greer and James Rees debate the issue: Should the Big East Conference's basketball teams be redistributed into divisions?

Jeff Greer argues that the Big East should be split up:

Split the Big East into football member and non-football member divisions
Why not split the conference into two eight-team divisions? Have each team play the other seven teams in its division twice and then play four games against rivals from the other division. In the football member division, there'd be Pitt, Connecticut, Syracuse, South Florida, Rutgers, West Virginia, Louisville and Cincinnati. The non-football member division would be Providence, St. John's, Seton Hall, Georgetown, Notre Dame, DePaul, Marquette and Villanova.

I like the conference tournament the way it will be this year, with the bottom eight playing on Tuesday. Those four winners play seeds 5-8, and whichever teams emerge from the first two rounds get the top four on Thursday. Sounds fun, right? It will be this year. So, the tournament doesn't even have to change if there are divisions.

If making money is the main concern, then divisions would only help, right?
Think of all the merchandise two division champs would be able to sell as opposed to one conference champ. If recent years are any indication of how these divisions would shake out, Pitt, UConn, Syracuse, West Virginia and Louisville would regularly compete for one division title, while Georgetown, Notre Dame, Marquette and Villanova would always be frontrunners in the other.

Splitting up can help appearance, too. I've covered two Big East tournaments in New York City. Is there a conference that cares more about appearance than the Big East? No. Not even close. It's all about glitz. So, if you finish fourth in your division, doesn't that look and sound better than finishing eighth or ninth?

James Rees argues against a plan that would reformat or redistribute teams in the Big East Conference:

Player Competition
With nine teams ranked in the top 25, the Big East is hands down the strongest conference in the country. A top 25 team, of course, is reliant on its stars to make it what it is, and stars are what the Big East has plenty of. If the conference were to split up or be reformatted, the matchups between the league's best players would be lost. Head to head battles that fans so eagerly anticipate such as Greg Monroe vs. Hasheem Thabeet, or Levance Fields vs. Dominic James might fall by the wayside. The essence of a conference in the eyes of its fans is its competitiveness and star power. Reformatting the Big East would cost the league both of those crucial elements.

Big East Tournament
If you want to go anywhere in life, usually you've got to put the work in and earn it. The same rule applies to the Big East Conference Tournament. Because the league is so large, only 12 teams make the postseason tournament. What this offers, and what might be sacrificed should the conference be reformatted, is a sense of urgency in regular season conference play. In a conference like the SEC or Big 10 where every team makes the conference tournament, some clubs might lack significant drive, thinking there's always the conference tournament to rely on. Not in the Big East. If you're not in the top 12 at the end of the season, you're done. If that's doesn't promote a sense of urgency and competitiveness, I don't know what does.

Too Many Good Teams
Every league has a punching bag or a doormat or a cellar dweller. Whatever you want to call it, there's always a few bad teams at the bottom of the ladder in conference play. It's a good thing though. It's an essential part of a healthy conference. The elite teams need a break every once in a while, and teams like USF, Rutgers, and DePaul provide that respite. Splitting up the Big East might mean that there may not be enough doormats to go around and without the doormats, everyone suffers.