New Year's Eve marathon, MSG tourney highlight 2014-15 BIG EAST schedule

The 2014-15 BIG EAST Conference men's basketball schedule was released Tuesday, featuring expansive television coverage through the league's partnership with FOX Sports and a repeat of its five-game marathon on New Year's Eve to tip off conference play. A robust BIG EAST Tuesday Showdown package on FOX Sports 1 will feature all 10 teams.

This season, FOX Sports 1 will carry more than 100 games nationally to approximately 90 million homes across the country. The FOX broadcast network has increased its coverage to at least eight games, all on weekends. Gus Johnson and Bill Raftery will again serve as FOX Sports' lead announce team for BIG EAST games.

"Our second season in the reconfigured BIG EAST Conference will again feature outstanding competition, wall-to-wall national television coverage, and another rousing finish with our conference tournament at Madison Square Garden, the mecca of college basketball," said BIG EAST Commissioner Val Ackerman. "Our exposure on FOX Sports continues to grow this year, with additional games to be shown on the FOX broadcast network and supplemental programming planned on our recently announced BIG EAST Digital Network on FOX Sports GO. With an exciting group of newcomers joining the conference and the continuation of our double round-robin format, BIG EAST fans will have much to look forward to and, thanks to FOX, many ways to follow all the action."

The BIG EAST, which began a new era last year with a 10-team, basketball-centric membership, again will start its league schedule on Dec. 31 with a five-game New Year's Eve marathon on FOX Sports 1, stretching from noon Eastern time until midnight.

FOX Sports 1 will be the place for a BIG EAST Tuesday Showdown package with an attractive 15-game schedule that will include a doubleheader most weeks. Each league team will appear at least twice. The Tuesday Showdown schedule begins Jan. 6 with a doubleheader featuring Marquette at Georgetown followed by Villanova at St. John's. The complete Tuesday Showdown schedule follows the FOX broadcast network schedule in this release. Click here for the complete BIG EAST men's basketball TV schedule.

FOX Sports 1 will be the exclusive home of the 2015 BIG EAST Tournament Presented by New York Life at Madison Square Garden, to be played March 11-14. The BIG EAST Tournament, which will be conducted for the 33rd consecutive year at the World's Most Famous Arena, is college basketball's longest running postseason basketball conference tourney held at the same venue. 

Additional highlights of the 2014-15 schedule include:

-- The New Year's Eve marathon begins with St. John's at Seton Hall from the Prudential Center at noon ET. At 2:30 p.m., Butler will visit Villanova at The Pavilion. Marquette travels to DePaul for a 5 p.m. tipoff at Allstate Arena, and at 7:30 p.m., Creighton plays at Providence in a rematch of last year's BIG EAST Tournament championship game.  The marathon closes with Georgetown playing at Xavier at 10 p.m.

-- The BIG EAST coverage on the FOX broadcast network has increased to at least eight games. FOX will televise at least five league contests. The three non-league games are: Northwestern at Butler on Dec. 6, Syracuse at Villanova on Dec. 20 and Duke at St. John's on Jan. 25 from Madison Square Garden.

-- On Jan. 19, the Martin Luther King holiday, FOX Sports 1 will televise Villanova at Georgetown. On Presidents' Day, Feb. 16, FOX Sports 1 will feature a doubleheader with Seton Hall at Villanova followed by Butler at Creighton.

-- CBS Sports will broadcast two games that include BIG EAST squads -- Marquette hosts Wisconsin on Dec. 6 and Georgetown plays at St. John's on Feb. 28. In its second year televising BIG EAST men's basketball, CBS Sports Network will again carry a line-up of top league games. The Network will televise 13 league games and five non-conference contests.

-- The 2014-15 regular season will end on Saturday, March 7 with all 10 teams in action and jockeying for position for the following week's BIG EAST Tournament. The matchups are: Seton Hall at Georgetown, Butler at Providence, St. John's at Villanova at the Wells Fargo Center, DePaul at Marquette and Xavier at Creighton. The FOX broadcast network will televise one of these crucial games, with the selection being made later in the season.

-- FOX Sports 1 will carry every game of the 2015 BIG EAST Tournament Presented by New York Life. The first-round doubleheader starts on Wednesday evening, March 11. Quarterfinal doubleheaders will be played Thursday afternoon and evening, March 12. The semifinal doubleheader will be held Friday, March 13, followed by the championship game on Saturday evening, March 14. 

Bryce Cotton and the Providence Friars were the surprise BIG EAST tournament champions in 2014.

-- FOX Sports 1 will air at least 109 regular-season games, including nine BIG EAST Tournament games. In addition to the BIG EAST Tuesday Showdown, fans will be able to enjoy BIG EAST basketball on virtually every day of the conference season in January and February.  

-- FOX Sports Regional Networks will air up to 20 games, including conference and non-conference contests regionally.

-- For the second straight season, each team will play an 18-game double round-robin schedule.

Coverage of BIG EAST basketball during the 2014-15 season will be included on the recently announced BIG EAST Digital Network. BEDN will have its own branded channel within FOX Sports GO, the app that provides live streaming video of FOX Sports content at home or on-the-go. BEDN will include 80-100 live streamed events, including women's basketball and Olympic sports. FOX Sports GO app users who are also subscribers of participating video providers can live stream basketball telecasts carried on the FOX broadcast network, FOX Sports 1, FOX Sports 2, and the FOX Sports Regional Network.

In addition to live streaming, BEDN content will include highlights, selected news coverage and shoulder programming. 

Last year, six of the 10 BIG EAST schools reached the postseason. Creighton, Providence, Villanova and Xavier played in the NCAA Tournament and Georgetown and St. John's competed in the NIT. Creighton's Doug McDermott was the consensus National Player of the Year.

The BIG EAST will conduct its Men's and Women's Basketball Media Day on Oct. 22 at Madison Square Garden.

Each of the BIG EAST's 10 schools will separately announce their full individual schedules.