NEW YORK

But he wishes he could get the chance.

“Oh, yeah, I mean I would love to, but my time is up,” Wyatt told SNY.tv exclusively following his career-high 33-point outburst as Temple stunned No. 3 Syracuse, 83-79, in the Chevrolet Gotham Classic at the Garden.

Temple moves to the Big East — or whatever the league formerly known as the Big East will be called — next season, so the Owls will play their first Big East Tournament at the Garden in 2014.

Of course, Syracuse will be out of the Big East next season and playing its first year in the ACC, forcing its huge throng of Northeast-based fans to head to Greensboro, N.C., to watch the Orange in a postseason tournament.

The 6-foot-4 Wyatt won’t get to play in the Big East event, but if Saturday was any indication he might be well suited to the bright lights and the big stage of March in New York City.

In his first game ever at the arena, Wyatt lit up previously unbeaten Syracuse by going 8-for-17 from the floor and a perfect 15-for-15 from the line.

“As a kid you want to play at Madison Square Garden,” Wyatt told SNY.tv. “I’m from the Norristown area, the Philadelphia area. Everybody calls it the Mecca of basketball, and you just want to play your best. And it was a great atmosphere.”

The atmosphere was charged with a huge pro-Syracuse crowd, but that didn’t stop Wyatt and teammate Anthony Lee from penetrating the Syracuse zone and taking advantage. Lee had a career-high 21 points.

A 6-9 sophomore, Lee will get to play in the Big East Tournament in 2014 when the league is currently slated to have 18 teams, including newcomers Memphis, SMU, Houston and UCF, as well as outgoing members Louisville and Rutgers, plus the seven departing Catholic schools.

As things currently stand in the ever-changing conference realignment landscape, Rutgers and Louisville will leave for the Big Ten and ACC, respectively, in 2014, while the Catholic 7 are slated to go in 2015.

Having beaten perennial Big East power Syracuse on the Garden floor in front of an orange-clad audience, Lee believes that experience will power himself and his teammates going forward.

“It really does,” said Lee, a Columbia, Md., native playing his first game at the Garden.  ”After playing here now, I will definitely be confident and the nerves and all those things won’t be there. Just be able to play the game and have fun. You know, the atmosphere was so great, it was crazy.

“Next year it’s definitely going to benefit us because the guys like me, [sophomore] Will [Cummings], returners, they’re going to have that experience of just playing in here.”

Another one of those returning players will be Quenton DeCosey, a freshman guard out of St. Joe’s-Metuchen, the same school that currently features 2014 Kentucky commit Karl Towns.

DeCosey is looking forward to playing a Big East Tournament here in 2014.

“Yeah, this is kind of just a statement that we can play against big teams, Big East teams, so it’s a statement game,” said DeCosey, who had six points and six rebounds, but was 1-for-5 from the foul line.

Temple coach Fran Dunphy tries to downplay the conference realignment angle, but he knows that going into next year his younger players will now own a huge victory over a Big East power on the Garden floor.

“I think our guys understand how big the moment is, coming into New York City and in Madison Square Garden,” Dunphy said. “I think the biggest thing is playing a team like Syracuse, just a remarkable program…I think they understand, especially a kid like Khalif who, he has no fear, he just wants the moment and I thought he embraced the moment.”

Wyatt is one of those guys who seems like he could be a big-time star in New York in March. Maybe not Gerry McNamara-big, but it’s not hard to imagine him leading his team on a special run in this building in March.

He’ll never get that chance, but he’ll always have Saturday.

And his younger teammates can create their own Garden moments going forward into the uncertain future of the Big East.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Wyatt said. “Temple’s a good program and we got a great coach, one of the best coaches in the country so next year they won’t have a problem in the Big East, whoever’s in the Big East next year.”

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WEST ORANGE, N.J.

This year is no exception.

Having won their 66th consecutive game Sunday with a 64-28 victory over Neptune at the Tip-Off Hoop Group Showcase, the Friars will now seek to set a modern-day New Jersey record of 67 straight wins when they play Newark Central Thursday night.

Ironically, St. Anthony is seeking to break its own record of 66 straight wins set under Hurley from 1995-7.

The Passaic “Wonder Teams” under Ernest “Prof” Blood won 159 consecutive games from 1919-25.

“I haven’t given this thing one second of thought,” said Hurley, the Naismith Hall of Famer who has won back-to-back New Jersey Tournament of Champions titles and 12 overall. “That is something that’s not coming up.

“If we were to win 80 in a row it won’t come up because this group has 26 games to kind of figure out what we’re good at and the last time I checked the 65-games prior to this Myles Mack, Lucious Jones, Jerome Frink, Kyle Anderson, there’s a lot of guys who I think their fingerprints would be on that more than this group I have here.”

Mack and Anderson enrolled at St. Anthony in 2010 after Paterson Catholic closed its doors for financial reasons. The duo helped St. Anthony go 33-0 and win the first of back-to-back Tournament of Champions titles in 2011 before Mack went off to Rutgers. Last season, Anderson led the Friars to a 32-0 mark before he landed at UCLA.

Now, Temple signee Josh Brown and Oregon State signee Hallice Cooke are the leaders of the current team.

Playing in front of Temple coach Fran Dunphy, Brown had 17 points, four rebounds and four assists in the win over Neptune, and Cooke added eight points.

“[Brown] has seen Myles Mack and he’s seen Lucious Jones two years ago and he’s seen Kyle Anderson and Jerome Frinke last year,” Hurley said. “You have to lead in your own way. Some guys have those outgoing personalities, some guys are quiet like Jerome Frink.

“So Josh is gotta right now because he’s a point [guard], he’s gotta be a little more vocal than maybe some of those guys. But I know he’s excited because the supporting group around him is very good and some of these younger guys around him, Jagen Mosely, has real good potential.” Mosely is the first freshman to start at St. Anthony since Elijah Ingram, Hurley said.

“Once they get their varsity leges, the older kids can lead and they don’t have to dominate the numbers,” Hurley said.

Brown knows he must take on a bigger role as he leads the team in the post-Kyle Anderson Era.

“I have a bigger role this year and I’m embracing it,” Brown said. “But it’s not just me, it’s not just Hallice, it’s a team sport. And we all just come together and at the end of the day we just want to get the victory.”

Next year, Brown is headed to an imploding Big East Conference where it is unclear who Temple will be facing in future years. With the seven Catholic schools having announced their plans to withdraw, Temple could end up with UConn, Cincinnati and South Florida as their only remaining Big East rivals.

“I’m just doing what I love to do, is play basketball,” Brown said. “Any conference, I’m going out there to just work hard, keep working on my game every day and reach my potential.”

Asked if wanted to face Georgetown and New Jersey native Reggie Cameron after the Catholics leave, Brown said, “I want to play against the best of the best, so it doesn’t really matter.”

Next year, Brown will join a Temple team that will also include Will Cummings and possibly Rysheed Jordan in the backcourt. Jordan is down to Temple, St. John’s and UCLA and will sign in the spring.

“I’m a team guy so I think it’s all going to work out,” Brown said. “We all play hard, we all got one goal and that’s winning so I think it will work tremendously.”

In the meantime, one more win at the high school level and Brown and his St. Anthony teammates will make modern-day New Jersey history.

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“They could not stop it,” the source said. “There’s language within the bylaws or the contracts that basically they or the football group could not stop that from happening. There’s some kind of clause pertaining to the dissolution of the league where it doesn’t apply. There’s a loophole there somewhere.”

We previously been reported that the seven Catholic schools – DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, Seton Hall, St. John’s and Villanova — had the necessary two-thirds vote to dissolve the conference over the three remaining all-sports schools — Cincinnati, UConn and South Florida.

The five schools that announced they are leaving the Big East — Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Louisville, Notre Dame and Rutgers — no longer have voting privileges within the league.

As has been widely reported, the Presidents and AD’s from the seven Catholic schools met Sunday in New York with Commissioner Mike Aresco to discuss the league’s future.

NEW YORK — Josh Brown is sticking with his first choice.

After decommitting from Temple in June, the 6-foot-3, 180-pound St. Anthony point guard decided to recommit, choosing Temple over Rhode Island, Penn State and Providence.

“I’ll be a Temple Owl,” Brown said in the SNY studio Monday. “I can’t wait to go down there and play in the backcourt with Quenton DeCosey, Will Cummings and Daniel Dingle. I also get a chance to be coached by one of the most underrated coaches, coach Fran Dunphy and his staff. And I’m going to be in Philly, a great place to be.”

Brown’s decision was a sentimental one. He chose Temple in part because his late mother, Kimberley, who died when he was 1 year and three months old, went there.

“What a lot of people don’t know is that the decision that he made is more of a sentimental decision,” his father, Richard, told SNY.tv. “He wanted to go to Temple because his mother went to Temple….It’s just an honor for him to want to commemorate her memory.”

Said Brown: “My mother went there also. It’s great that I get to go up there and follow her footsteps and lead, don’t be a follower up there.”

An Irvington, N.J., native, Brown initially committed to Temple, but decommitted to reconsider his options.

“I committed real early and talking to my recruiting advisor, Ed Bright, talking to my father, I didn’t want to have any regrets when it’s all said and done,” Brown said. “So I decided to decommit and weigh my options and see what else I could get. And finishing a great AAU season with Sports U, I got a few offers which made it really interesting. So committing back to them now knowing I have no regrets, it feels great.”

He will join Temple in 2013 just in time for their entrance into the Big East Conference. Memphis, Houston, UCF and SMU will also join then for basketball.

“I always want to play the best competition, I’m a competitive guy and the Big East is where it’s at,” Brown said.

Brown thanked St. Anthony Hall of Fame coach Bob Hurley, as well as Rhode Island coach Dan Hurley, Providence coach Ed Cooley and Penn State coach Pat Chambers for recruiting him.

He averaged 9 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists last season at St. Anthony, while playing alongside current UCLA freshman Kyle Anderson.

Like Anderson, Brown is 65-0 in his St. Anthony career and has won back-to-back New Jersey Tournament of Champions titles.

This summer on the AAU circuit, Brown and his Sports U team won five events and reached the final of a sixth. He was named the MVP of the Pitt Jam Fest and the Rumble in the Bronx.

“What he brings to Temple is the intangibles, he’s a leader, he is arguably the best one-on-one defensive guard in America,” Bright said. “He’s long, he has range. I’m sure Coach Dunphy will know what he needs to develop offensively.

“And he’s a great kid.”

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Maryland head coach Mark Turgeon called Expressions 16s coach Tyron Boswell on Tuesday, and Temple assistant Dwayne Killings also called. Both watched the 6-foot-8 Abu and the 6-10 Brennan play in the 16s final on Friday, where the Expressions lost to Team Takeover.

Yale head coach James Jones also offered Brennan.

Boswell said Abu planned to visit both Maryland and Temple later this month.

“We’re going to take a visit to Maryland and Temple in August,” Boswell told SNY.tv Wednesday. “Abdul is going to London on Wednesday with his high school team for a basketball tourament out there.

“We will wait till he gets back and then visit in late August. He gets back on the 16th. That week when he gets back.”

For more on Abu, read this story from last week.

Boswell said UMass has also offered 2014 shooting guard Damion Smith, 2015 shooting guard Juwan Gooding and 2015 center Toriola Moses.

“Yes, I did,” the 6-foot-2 2013 St. Anthony combo guard told SNY.tv after the news had previously been reported by several outlets. “The reason why I did is I don’t want to regret anything when all is said and done. I want to just enjoy the process.

“Temple is still top on my list. The new schools I have now are Rhode Island, Gonzaga, Virginia and Richmond.”

St. Anthony assistant coach Eric Harrield said he had also heard from Miami, Rutgers, St. Joe’s and Indiana.

“We all agreed that it would be good for him to go through the recruiting process and make sure that he’s fully committed to the decision,” Harrield said. “He didn’t take any visits anywhere else.”

Brown scored the game-winning basket in triple-OT last Sunday when Sports U beat the Playaz Basketball Club, 57-55, in the gold championship game of the Rumble in the Bronx, and his stock is taking off.

“Winning the Rumble in the Bronx was a great experience because it was against the Playaz who are a very talented team,” Brown said. “Also making the game winning basket in the sudden death was pretty cool. I was excited to win my second MVP  during this year’s summer circuit. I also won it at the Pitt JamFest.”

Now that he’s back on the market, expect the recruitment to pick back up.

“I expect to get a lot of phone calls,” Harrield said.

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The 6-foot-5 Hackensack, N.J., native will have two years of eligibility left after sitting next season.

“I think it was the best opportunity for me after sitting out my year,” the former St. Benedict’s Prep guard told SNY.tv by phone following his visit to Southern Miss. “I want to take the year off to get better physically and skill-wise.”

Brown averaged 6.4 points and 14.6 minutes last season at Temple.

He chose Southern Miss in part because of his relationship with assistant coach Jareem Dowling.

“He was my national team coach [with the Virgin Islands],” Brown said. “That made it a bigger factor.”

He also came to like the campus, choosing it over Wagner and Boston University.

“I thought it was going to be all country but it’s a beautiful campus,” he said. “The coach [Donnie Tyndall] is getting other transfers. They’re getting some bigs.

“I’ve known [Tyndall] since he was at Morehead State. With the right guys he could keep doing the same thing at Southern Miss.”

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As reported here last week, the Big East has fast-tracked Temple to join for all sports in 2012 mainly because West Virginia is leaving the league by July 1 to join the Big 12. West Virginia must pay the Big East $20 million to leave early.

With only seven football schools left, the Big East needed to move fast in order to add an eighth team for scheduling purposes. Temple, which plays football in the MAC, had previously been in the Big East for football from 1991-2004 but was booted for being non-competitive.

“This is driven by the 2012 football schedule,” Patrick J. O’Connor, Chairman of Temple’s Board of Trustees and principal in the Philadelphia-based law firm Cozen O’Connor, told CSNPhilly. “Because of that, decisions have to be made. There are time considerations.

Temple, which plays basketball in the Atlantic 10, would become the Big East’s 16th basketball team next season.

It would cost Temple $2 million to leave the A-10 with less than a year’s notice and $2.5 million to leave the MAC, CBSSports.com reported.

“I think we were a natural choice to join the Big East months ago,” O’Connor told CSNPhilly.com. “It baffles me that they let in some of the schools they did before Temple.”

“The Board’s job is to make a decision that impacts all of Temple’s students,” O’Connor added. “It will affect where we are (athletically) over the next five to 10 years. It’s a matter of where we want to be. We have two world-class coaches in football (Steve Addazio) and men’s basketball (Fran Dunphy) and they belong on a national stage.”

Louisville coach Rick Pitino has been a staunch supporter of both Temple and Memphis joining the Big East.

Memphis was admitted earlier this month beginning in 2013.

At that point, the league will have 18 basketball programs after SMU, Houston, UCF and Memphis all join.

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The league desperately needs an eighth football program for 2012 to offset the loss of West Virginia, which paid a $20 million settlement to leave as of July 1.

One source told CBSSports.com that Temple to the Big East in 2012 “is done.”

The Big East will then have eight football and 16 basketball teams in 2012.

By the 2013-14 season, the Big East will swell to an 18-team basketball league.

Temple will another quality basketball program — the No. 22 Owls are 21-5 — and another program supported by Louisville coach Rick Pitino, who also endorsed Memphis. Memphis will join in all sports in 2013. 

“Financially, it makes so much sense for Temple to be in the Big East,” Pitino said recently. “Now I say all of that, that’s whether or not the Presidents and the athletic directors want to expand further. If they want to expand further, there’s no better school, there’s no better program.

“Temple is an ideal fit. Inner-city school, great tradition in basketball, great culture for the other sports and it fits in the dynamics. I think we want to right now — at least I know I do as someone who started out in 1986 — we want to really in the year Dave Gavitt passed, we really want to protect his legacy of what he built up. And I think by adding Memphis, that certainly does that.

“If we were to expand further, Temple would certainly be a natural for us.”

Temple basketball coach Fran Dunphy told SNY.tv he was flattered by Pitino’s comments.

“I certainly appreciate Coach Pitino’s comments and the confidence he would have in our University and program,” Dunphy said last fall. “They were wonderful to read. Obviously, at this present time we’re in the Atlantic 10 and we’re in the MAC for football, and we certainly appreciate the relationships that we have with both of those institutions.

“And whatever’s going to happen with any of our Universities out there is going to happen at a much higher level than me. But I certainly appreciate Rick’s comments.”

The Temple news means 2012 commits Daniel Dingle of St. Raymond’s in The Bronx, Quenton DeCosey of St. Joe’s Metuchen and Devontae Watson of Midland, Pa., will play in the Big East next year.

Ironically, Pitino and Louisville could be headed to the Big 12 because the league reportedly wants Louisville as its 11th member.

For his part, Pitino says he wants to remain in the Big East.

“[Louisville AD] Tom [Jurich] is perfectly satisfied with what the Big East is all about, has always been that way,” Pitino said. “The Big 12 had an opportunity to possibly get Louisville last year and they didn’t take that opportunity. We think we have one of the premier athletic programs in the nation, not just in basketball….so we’ve never looked to go anywhere else.

“We just want to make sure that football’s been intact and obviously with the moves that John Marinatto has made with Houston, SMU and Boise STate, he’s obviously done a fantastic job in putting together even a stronger football program. I don’t think Tom has ever looked anywhere, to be honest with you. That doesn’t mean in the future, we can say we’re going to be in the Big East 20 years from now. I don’t know what the landscape is.

“If you’re asking me personally, I’m a Big East guy through thick and thin. To me, I wouldn’t mind dying a Big East coach.”

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NEW YORK — Big East Commissioner John Marinatto may not want to give Rick Pitino any credit for Memphis coming to the Big East, but Josh Pastner certainly does.

“We play Louisville next year as part of a home-and-home series,” Pastner, the Memphis coach, told SNY.tv during Thursday’s edition of “The Big East Report.”

“I really believe Coach Pitino deserves a standing ovation when Louisville comes here because one of the main reasons we got into the Big East was through Coach Pitino’s public politicking for us to get in.”

Pitino told SNY.tv last fall that Memphis would be “an awesome addition” to the Big East in the wake of Syracuse, Pittsburgh and West Virginia leaving, and reiterated those comments Thursday on “SiriuxXm’s Inside College Basketball” with Jeff Goodman and Bruce Pearl.

“In terms of the culture of Big East basketball, we needed an inner city school, a Top 20 program, and right now we get Memphis who would automatically now become the second largest crowd,” Pitino said.

“They average 16,500.  They’ll average 18,000 now being in the Big East.  This is going to sound shocking to you but their APR would be second in the Big East.  Their facilities would rank them in the top 5 in the Big East.  So we needed this, a big shot in the arm for us.  I think we’re going to probably still add one more team.”

Consistent with comments he previously made to SNY.tv, Pitino still believes Temple could be that team.

“Me personally, it’s Temple,” he told Goodman and Pearl. “But, you know, I’m not the commissioner and I’m not the presidents.  People say that Villanova is fighting it.  I don’t understand because South Florida had to say, ‘Look, we don’t like it but we’ll take Central Florida.  If that’s in the best interests of the conference, we’ll do it.’  And Villanova’s going to have to say, ‘If it’s in the best interests of the conference, we’ll do it.’

“So everybody’s gotta start thinking, the only agenda is how can the Big East be strong?  Now, Temple, I think, is the logical, again, it’s an inner city school, Philadelphia, great coach, great tradition.  I think it’s a natural.  Good football program.  But I don’t know if some other people would agree with that. I’ve always said that Memphis and Temple make the most sense.”

Like Pitino before him, Pastner will be coming over to the Big East from Conference-USA, where Memphis, especially under former coach John Calipari, has at times dominated its opponents.

“I want to say that Conference-USA is a terrific basketball league,” said Pastner, whose Tigers are 17-7, 7-2 in the conference and boast 18,000 season ticket-holders. “It’s very, very under-valued. It’s very under-appreciated both locally and nationally by the media….Conference-USA does not get the respect that it deserves.”

Still, Pastner said coming to the Big East in 2013 would be an “honor and privilege.”

“I mean, the Big East, you’re talking about a league that is known as maybe the best basketball league for 20, 30, 40 years,” he said.

Paster said he had no dramatic plans to alter his recruiting philosophy once his team joins the new league.

“We’re a national program,” he said, “and we recruit nationally. You look at our last couple recruiting classes, we recruit at a very high level, we’ve signed high-level guys….This is a players’ game, and that what’s your focus is, going to get the best players.”

He will need the best players to compete in the new conference even if this isn’t your father’s Big East.

Georgetown coach John Thompson III, whose team has played Memphis the last two years out of conference, believes the Tigers are joining an elite conference.

“When you start talking about Syracuse and people leaving, all that meant is that we went from unquestionably the best basketball conference to now we’re arguably the best basketball conference,” Thompson III said on the Big East conference call.

“And so they’re coming into what is probably going to still be the best basketball conference.”

Like Pitino, West Virginia coach Bob Huggins has also coached in Conference-USA and in the Big East.

Yet while West Virginia is on its way out – perhaps as early as this year – Memphis is coming in.

Asked how he thought Memphis would make the transition, Huggins said:

“That’s hard to answer because the truth of the matter is a third of the  Big East was in Conference-USA when I was in Conference-USA. I mean, Rick was at Louisville, Cal was at Memphis, DePaul had Quentin Richardson, Marquette was good. Tommy [Crean] was doing a great job at Marquette.”

He added: “They’ve got a heck of a basketball program. Cal did a great job getting it going and Josh has kept it going. They’ve got a great, great fan base. Their base is absolutely terrific. They travel. You’ll see them everywhere in the league.”

Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon said it was “bittersweet” that his team was leaving the Big East for the ACC, along with Syracuse.

But he said he believes the Big East did the right thing in adding schools like Memphis, Houston, SMU and UCF.

“They’ve definitely solidified the conference and we’re very glad for that and we’re glad to see that Memphis and all the other teams that they’re adding bring something,” Dixon said. “Everybody brings something different to the table and they all bring some value.

“That is key. They didn’t fill with just numbers. They filled with teams that brought a certain value and strength to the conference in different ways. And I think the plan that they’ve followed has really worked out well for the Big East.”

Now, it’s just a matter of getting Pitino that standing O in Memphis.

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