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Big East, Big Ten To Make Men's Basketball Announcement On Monday

And by the reports leaking out, it's going to kick off the 2015-16 season in a big way.

By Brewtown Andy
There's no good pictures of Big East commish Val Ackerman, so here's B1G commish Jim Delany.
There's no good pictures of Big East commish Val Ackerman, so here's B1G commish Jim Delany.
Reid Compton-US PRESSWIRE

Here's what we know for sure: tomorrow, there will be a joint press conference between the Big East and the Big Ten at Madison Square Garden, starting at 11:30am Central.  Bill Raftery will be your master of ceremonies, with Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany, Big East commissioner Val Ackerman, Providence president Fr. Brian Shanley, and Dan Gavitt in attendance.

Since there are credible journalists with sources running around out there, we already know from Brian Hamilton of Sports Illustrated to expect that it will be a Big East vs Big Ten challenge series of some kind, starting in the 2015-16 season.  Kevin McNamara of the Providence Journal informs us that it will be a season kick-off series at campus sites honoring Dave Gavitt, the founder of the Big East.

We'll wait for tomorrow's press conference to dive deeper into the details of what may or may not happen, but the one thing that jumps out at me is who is responsible for this idea.  The Big Ten Network is a joint venture between the Big Ten and Fox Sports.  Obviously, the Big East is a significant part of Fox Sports 1's broadcast schedule, and with the series set up to honor the Big East's founder, they were going to have to be involved.  It would seem to me that if this idea didn't come straight from the Fox Sports offices, they definitely greased the wheels for the Big Ten to get involved, thus keeping the games on their airwaves and giving both BTN and FS1 a high profile event to kick off the college basketball season going forward.