BTN.com staff, BTN.com staff, May 4, 2014

Two of the most prestigious conferences in the nation, the Big East and the Big Ten, have announced the establishment of the Gavitt Tipoff Games, an annual early-season series of eight men?s basketball games played between the two conferences and named in honor of Dave Gavitt, founder of the Big East and basketball visionary.

The Gavitt Tipoff Games will be played on four consecutive days in the first full week of the college basketball season. The series begins at the start of the 2015-16 season and will span eight years, with games played at home sites.

The series will feature four home contests each for Big East and Big Ten schools on an annual basis from 2015 through 2022. Two games will be played on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in the first full week of each season. Each Big East team will participate a minimum of six times over the eight years, while Big Ten programs will participate a minimum of four times.

Television coverage of the Gavitt Tipoff Games will be controlled by the conference of the home team. Big East home games will be telecast by FOX Sports 1, while Big Ten home matchups will appear on BTN or ESPN.

Teams from both conferences already meet in some traditional rivalry games, and those matchups will continue during the 2014-15 season.

The full schedule of eight games will be announced in late spring of each year.

The new annual series will be officially introduced in a news conference Monday at Madison Square Garden in New York.

For full coverage of the news conference and individual interviews, tune into #BTNLive at 6 p.m. ET Monday on the Big Ten Network.