[CarrotAndStick]

Before the BIG BANG, how did all of the material for the VAST universe get together in a miniscule ball?

Gravity. http://library.thinkquest.org/C0126626/form/formation%20of%20universe.the%20first%20millisecond.intro.htm

[adorno]

Before the BIG BANG, how did all of the material for the VAST universe get together in a miniscule ball?

Gravity.

Did you say gravity?

We're talking about events before the Big Bang. Before the Big Bang there was no universe or gravity. To say that gravity brought all of the material of the universe together into a tiny ball before the Big Bang is to say that before that tiny ball there was a different kind of universe with all kinds of material scattered about, and therefore the universe didn't begin with the Big Bang.