Enjoy the Big East tournament this year - it’s the last one before they enter utter insanity.

The good news? The league will finally allow all 16 teams into the 2009 post-season conference tournament, instead of the somewhat silly current rule of just entering the top 12 squads. Which, of course, means they’ll go to a normal tournament format: Four games to win the tournament, teams play every day, 15 games total, right?

Umm … not quite.

Under the new format, a team could play five, yes FIVE, games in five days just to win the title. Here’s how it will go:

- On Tuesday, the tournament would start with the bottom eight teams playing. Seed nine plays 16, seed 10 plays 15, seed 11 plays 14 and seed 12 plays 13.

- Wednesday the winners of those games play seeds five through eight. The 9/16 winner would play seed eight, the 10/15 winner plays seed seven and so on.

- Thursday the winners of those games would play the top four seeds in the quarterfinals. Those first four would now just be starting their tournament.

- Friday would be the semifinals, and Saturday the finals. Click on the link to see the headache this will be: big-east-bracket.pdf

Get all that? We know they want to protect the top teams, but giving the top four seeds two full days off?

And how much wear are you putting on the other squads? Remember Syracuse’s magical run to the tournament title in 2006? The Orange were a 9 seed. Under the new format, the ‘Cuse would have to win five games in five days, not four in four.

And we come back to the same opinion: The Big East is just too damn big. Yes, winning four games in four days is probably too much for a conference tournament. The league really needs a split, either along the private/public line or d-1 football or non line.

Of course, that scenario is about as rational as going to a normal 16-team tournament. And neither will happen. At least for now.