For anyone who grew up in the 1980s, Big Monday on ESPN meant Big East basketball.

The creation of ESPN and it's boatload of programming meant plenty of college hoops.

If you liked college basketball, you had to have ESPN. If you liked college basketball, you had to at least respect the Big East Conference.

With the advent of ESPN, TV viewers saw plenty of Georgetown, Patrick Ewing, the Carrier Dome at Syracuse, "Send it in, Jerome!" (Bill Rafferty's call when Pitt's Jerome Lane's dunk smashed a back board), St. John's' Chris Mullin's T-shirt under his jersey (Ewing first made that famous) and of course Villanova's win over the Hoyas in 1985 to win it all (although CBS had rights for the national championship game that year, as it continues to do so since).

Sadly, all that will soon be over with the completion of this weekend's Big East tournament.

All that's left are the memories, the best of which are from the 80s.

- Mark Podolski | @modo