#TWITBE Ep. 9.9 - Guests Val Ackerman, Ed Cooley and Bill Raftery

This Week in the BIG EAST - Weekly Overview of NCAA College Basketball's Top Conference

This Week In The BIG EAST Radio Show, distributed by Westwood One, continues its ninth season with guests BIG EAST Commissioner Val Ackerman, Providence head coach Ed Cooley and CBS and FOX Sports analyst Bill Raftery.

The ninth episode of TWITBE reviews the past week of BIG EAST basketball, taking a deep dive into the Marquette Golden Eagles regular season crown. Picked ninth in the preseason poll, Marquette earned the program’s first outright BIG EAST regular season title following a win at Butler on Tuesday and will enter the tournament as the top overall seed. In addition, Villanova is scorching at the right time, winning six of its last seven games and will enter the BIG EAST Tournament as the No. 6 seed.

The BIG EAST Spotlight is on BIG EAST Commissioner Val Ackerman, who gives her thoughts on the state of the conference. In a decade since realignment, Ackerman provides insight into the success of the conference and the teams who comprise it. From consistently rising attendance figures, to multiple teams in the national polls, the BIG EAST is poised for March Madness.

The BIG EAST Focus shines on Providence head coach Ed Cooley. Cooley won BIG EAST Coach of the Year Honors and Naismith Coach of the Year honors last season as Providence made a run to the Sweet 16. After an offseason of activity in the transfer portal, the Friars are back near the top of the BIG EAST standings and poised to make noise not just in the BIG EAST Tournament, but the NCAA Tournament as well.

CBS and FOX Sports Analyst Bill Raftery gives a view on the national perspective. Raftery discusses his excitement about the prospects of a wide-open tournament that any number of teams could win.

The episode’s “Who’s Hot” segment features the return of “Blast from the Past”, rewinding the tape to 2013. Marquette clinched the BIG EAST regular season title on Tuesday with a win at Butler almost ten years to the day after clinching a share of the regular season conference crown with Louisville and Georgetown. The Golden Eagles wound up advancing to the East Regional Final that season.

The returning hosts for This Week In The BIG EAST (#TWITBE) are John Rooke, a longtime BIG EAST play-by-play voice, and Kevin McNamara, BIG EAST radio host, columnist and author. Rooke and McNamara give a comprehensive look at the teams, coaches, players and storied tradition of the top basketball conference in America in each episode.

To join the conversation and send questions to Rooke (@JRbroadcaster) and McNamara (@KevinMcNamara33), use #TWITBE on Twitter. Fans may submit questions to be featured on the show.

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This will air Saturday, March 4 at 11 a.m. ET on Sirius 134 XM 201 Online 964.