Connecticut guard Ben Gordon clinched it, sinking two clutch free throws with 8.9 seconds to play. The Huskies led the Miami Hurricanes 76-72. Miami got a layup on the other end four seconds later. But it was still over.

Until Darius Rice swiped the inbounds pass. And launched a three. At the buzzer. Bulls-eye.

Hurricanes fans rushed the court. UConn players cried in the locker room. And Miami coach Perry Clark said, "Just another one of those Miami-Connecticut type of games."

	Darius Rice showed why one of the best Big East rivalries stretches over nearly 1,500 miles.

Welcome to the new Big East.

There are 1,442 miles between Storrs, Ct., and Coral Gables, Fla. Yet UConn-Miami has developed into one of the fiercest rivalries in the Big(ger) East. That Hurricane victory on Jan. 20 was retribution for a heartbreaking overtime loss nine days earlier at Connecticut. Last season, their two matchups were decided by a total of three points.

The conference has come a long way since its heyday in the 1980's, when original members like St. John's and Georgetown battled in the premier games, pitting the likes of Chris Mullin and Patrick Ewing against each other. The league expanded to 14 men's hoops teams in 2000, and the conference was subsequently carved into two divisions.

Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese faced a difficult task in divvying up the conference. Several factors came under consideration, one of which was the preservation of traditional rivalries. In particular, Tranghese wanted to keep Syracuse-Georgetown and Pitt-West Virginia alive, and keep the three New England schools together (Connecticut, Providence and Boston College).

But he also hoped to create new rivalries. "The only way to do that is to have people play each other a lot," Tranghese says. "Having teams play twice over a short period of time, you get intensified rivalries."

Each team plays a 16-game conference schedule -- 12 games (home and away) against the teams in its division, and four crossover games against teams in the other division. Tranghese himself schedules the crossover games.

"I try to make the best games," Tranghese says. "The best team doesn't get the four toughest games -- but they'll get three of the best. I believe the best teams ought to play the best teams. And we also want the best games for TV purposes."

The downside is some teams don't play each other at all, and that can happen in consecutive years. St. John's and Georgetown are in opposite divisions, and no longer play every year. That rivalry has taken a major hit, as have several others.

"Our biggest rival is Syracuse, and we didn't play them at all last year," says UConn coach Jim Calhoun. "That was the first time in 27 years we didn't play. Even before the Big East began we played them."

The consensus among conference coaches is that the current system is the best solution, under the circumstances. "I haven't really liked the divisions, but it's the only manageable way," says Calhoun. "I still don't feel there's a true East and West champion, even though we've got one of those trophies."

The current state of college hoops, with so many players leaving early, also has contributed to the traditional rivalries' decline. "Kids nowadays only know a year or two behind them," says Villanova coach Jay Wright. "They don't pay as much attention to tradition."

The biggest reason for the more recent Big East rivalries is simply success. "When good teams are playing good teams, it naturally creates rivalries," says Calhoun.

But how much do these new rivalries really mean? Take Notre Dame and Pittsburgh. Each has won a West Division title in the last two years. When they played on Jan. 6, the Fighting Irish were ranked No. 5 nationally, the Panthers No. 6. "They are a very good team," Pitt coach Ben Howland says of Notre Dame. "It's great competition between us, but I don't know if I'd call it a big rivalry."

Not yet, anyway. These things take time.

"With the addition of so many teams, you can't expect to have the same type of rivalries, the history's not there," says Georgetown coach Craig Esherick. "But that can develop."

In the meantime, the traditional rivalries still resonate to some degree. "To our kids, Syracuse is still different than all our other games," says Esherick. "It's a staple of the college basketball season."

"Whenever you divide and your rivalries are separated, and instead of playing them home and home you're playing only once a year or not at all, it's possible that you lose some of that glimmer," says the legendary former coach at St. John's, Lou Carnesecca. "But the wounds are still there."

And fresh wounds are being created. Just look at UConn-Miami.

Kieran Darcy is a frequent contributor to ESPN.com.