by Eric Prisbell, USA TODAY Sports

Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, who has been in the Big East since its inception in 1979, said that the new Big East basketball conference, when it begins competition in the fall, will be among the nation’s preeminent basketball conferences.

“I think it will be as good as any league,” Boeheim told USA TODAY Sports on Tuesday. “I think it can be a top basketball league, I really do. They have the TV deal. Their fear, which is not going to happen, is that (football) schools break away from the NCAA and form some big deal. But I don’t see that happening.”

The new league, which will keep the Big East name, will consist of the Catholic 7: Georgetown, Seton Hall, Marquette, Providence, DePaul, St. John’s and Villanova. Xavier and Butler are also expected to join the league from the Atlantic-10. And the league could expand further, perhaps to include Creighton and/or Saint Louis, among other candidates.

The basketball schools are also expected to announce a television deal with the new Fox Sports 1 channel today, USA TODAY Sports reported.

“They will end up with a really good league,” Boeheim said. “They’ll have some money coming in, and looks like they have a TV contract. And they don’t ever have to worry about football juggling them around again. That was always going to happen.

“It was a miracle the Big East stayed together for so long. And football-basketball schools need to be together. And basketball-only schools need to be together. It [the breakup] was inevitable. It just took a long time because of Dave Gavitt and Mike Tranghese holding it together all those years.”

… [For more on Syracuse's Boeheim is bullish on 'Catholic 7' basketball, click here.]