This will be the first in a series of posts on my first impressions of Big East teams. I saw Marquette play Wisconsin on Saturday, and here’s my thesis:

Marquette is a poor man’s 2005-2006 Villanova.

• Dominic James, Jerel McNeal, and Wesley Matthews remind me a lot of Kyle Lowry, Allan Ray, and Randy Foye (not necessarily in that order). Both triumverates are/were very quick and a bit undersized. They possess similar games: they either take you off the dribble straight to the hoop, or pull up for some ridiculous three that goes in more often than you think it ought to. Dominic James even wears the same type of elbow guard that Allan Ray did last year. Sometimes I think the Marquette guards get away with traveling when they execute a crossover dribble; I had the same qualm about Villanova last year.
• Their supporting casts are also very similar: Ousmane Barro and Dan Fitzgerald lack strong post moves but make up for it with a lot of grit, just like Dante Cunningham and Will Sheridan.
• Defense: Very tenacious — up in people’s faces, aggressively double-teaming, and waving arms and hands frenetically. Just like Villanova last year, they need this feverish pitch to overcome the size disadvantage. This was effective against some of Wisconsin’s players, who lost their composure and traveled or committed offensive fouls by using their elbows to get more personal space. At times, though, the defense seems out of control. In the first half against Wisconsin, the aggressive double-teaming hurt quite a bit, as Wisconsin held their composure and delivered quick, accurate passes to cutting players. The Marquette defense needs to work a bit more on rotating over after the double team.
• Offense: Few set plays, a lot of penetration off of high screens and kicking the ball out for a three, and just letting Dominic James do his thing. It’s not the most aesthetically-pleasing flavor of basketball (I’m a Pete Carril man), but it works well with this lineup. Dominic James is a major talent and reminds me of Allen Iverson. But I think Tom Crean lets his players stand and watch James too often. On Saturday, they only had 8 assists on 26 baskets (as opposed to Wisconsin’s 17 on 29).

It’s hard for me to get a read of Marquette, but I think they’re in for a rocky year. They could beat or lose to anybody in the country on a given night. They sure are exciting, though, and I look forward to some crazy games this year.

Oh, and one last thing: Ousmane Barro is going to break somebody’s face this year. Dude has some nasty elbows.

Categories: Commentary, donald, Marquette
4 Comments »

Now that the season is a month old, we can start to get a picture of the elite and very good teams. Yet pollsters have not budged much from their initial guesses. I’ve talked to donald, who has more to say (vent) about this, so here’s a brief list of some of my complaints:

• It seems that “what have you done for me lately?” matters greatly, evidenced by the fact that losses will drop a team in the polls, no matter who they lose to or how well they play. If that’s the case, doesn’t it make sense to make big changes each week? Shouldn’t some of November’s big winners have shot up towards the top of the poll? Shouldn’t teams playing absolutely no one — UConn, that’s you — not move up at best?
• Conversely, it seems that the pollsters’ objective is to prognosticate about the end of the season. If this were the case, some losses would be more easily overlooked when weighed against the rest of the season. When #23 drops a close game to the #1 team, should they really drop out of the top 25?
• It all stems from a fundamental problem — no matter what poll it is, last week’s ranking carries significant weight towards this week’s ranking. A little humility is needed — pollsters should be willing to throw out their opinions from a week ago instead of reaffirming them. It leads to games like last week’s Bama-ND clash, in which the better team is unranked and the actual underdog is in the top five. ESPN.com gets to run some punny “upset special” heading on their front page, Vegas has no idea where to set the line, and the correction in public opinion is never enough (Alabama dropped to #9 and ND moved to #21 in one poll and #27 in the other).

So here’s our objective impression of the top 25. The ranking of all 336 schools can be found here.

School              W- L    Rat   (r)    SoS   (r)  NCSoS   (r)

Florida             8- 2   99.0   (1)   71.4  (87)   71.4 (100)

Arizona             7- 1   92.3   (2)   79.9   (3)   79.9   (5)

North Carolina      7- 1   92.3   (2)   77.0  (11)   77.0  (16)

Notre Dame          7- 1   89.6   (4)   69.9 (131)   69.9 (139)

Villanova           6- 2   89.6   (4)   77.3   (9)   77.3  (11)

Ohio St             8- 1   89.6   (4)   71.9  (73)   71.9  (86)

Connecticut         8- 0   89.4   (7)   64.4 (281)   64.4 (287)

Butler              9- 1   88.1   (8)   78.0   (6)   76.9  (19)

LSU                 5- 2   88.1   (8)   71.8  (74)   71.8  (88)

Kansas              8- 2   87.9  (10)   73.4  (47)   73.4  (56)

Maryland            9- 2   87.6  (11)   75.5  (20)   74.3  (40)

Texas A&M           7- 2   87.4  (12)   69.5 (154)   69.5 (159)

Clemson             9- 0   87.2  (13)   69.4 (155)   69.4 (161)

Oregon              7- 0   87.2  (13)   69.9 (131)   69.9 (139)

Texas               6- 2   86.9  (15)   69.6 (153)   69.6 (157)

UCLA                7- 0   86.7  (16)   74.1  (36)   74.1  (43)

Michigan St         9- 2   86.5  (17)   74.1  (36)   74.1  (43)

Georgia             5- 1   86.5  (17)   61.2 (322)   61.2 (323)

Air Force           9- 1   86.4  (19)   68.1 (191)   68.1 (195)

Xavier              7- 2   86.3  (20)   73.3  (50)   73.3  (60)

Duke                9- 1   86.2  (21)   73.8  (42)   73.8  (49)

Illinois            9- 2   85.9  (22)   70.9  (97)   70.9 (111)

UNLV                6- 2   85.8  (23)   80.1   (2)   80.1   (3)

Gonzaga             9- 2   85.7  (24)   72.4  (62)   72.4  (74)

Missouri            9- 1   85.5  (25)   73.2  (51)   73.2  (61)

You might question how Florida could be #1 by a huge margin, and if so, you’re probably too blinded by their two losses to have noticed how well they’ve played the rest of the season. Florida, Arizona, and UNC remain popular Final Four picks and populate the top three spots. UCLA, on the other hand, is #1 in both polls but stands at #16 here.

The Big East has just three representatives. I’m shocked that I have UConn ahead of their current poll standing. As usual, they’ve destroyed everything the state of Connecticut can throw at them, plus a couple other scrubs. Calhoun has pushed out any semblence of competitive nonconference basketball to 2007. Can they maintain their efficiency when the competition gets better?

Notre Dame has been very good, and I’ve touted them plenty here. I love the way they play. It hasn’t translated to the polls yet, however. Here’s a situation where significant preseason bias will prevent them from getting due respect for a while.

My favorite surprise is Villanova. Not only are they not in either poll, they haven’t been ranked as high as 25 on a single ballot. Subjectively, #4 in the country is unrealistic, but they’re better than nearly everybody thinks.

I expect this ranking to change greatly moving forward. Pittsburgh and West Virginia are not far from cracking the top 25, and I expect Pitt to do so as their competition gets better. They’ll rise to the occasion. Marquette and Syracuse have not played as well as the polls suggest; the voters must expect better things from them.

Categories: Dan'l B, Rankings
4 Comments »

See, the problem with the internet is that it can lead you to believe that people have dropped off the face of the earth, just because you don’t know how to spell their name. I had wanted to put a picture of our favorite 7’4” Romanian UMiami grad, or even find out what happened to the guy, but I just wasn’t getting anything searching for “Constantine Popa”. So it happened by chance last night that I typed his name “Constantin Popa” and found tons of results, including this rather relevant one: “Former UM Star is still making an impact; Father of five thrives as Cypress Bay girls’ basketball coach, special ed teacher.”

Yup, that’s right. After bouncing around the US playing in the USBL and moving over to Europe to play in a few leagues over there, Popa’s back in Florida. Now, don’t get me wrong — I think Popa’s a great guy for doing this, and we (as a society) need more people to go into teaching. That said, I’m laughing my ass off imagining him counseling a high school girl who just broke up with her boyfriend. The article gets even more hilarious:

“At UM, he became friendly with several standouts, including Dwayne Johnson (“The Rock”), Warren Sapp and Ray Lewis.”

Popa hanging out with The Rock? Popa chilling with Warren Sapp? Popa going to the club with Ray Lewis and stabbing people? Folks, we’re talking about this guy:

This just made my weekend…

Categories: donald, Nostalgia
3 Comments »

For all of you who don’t know Dan’l B, he’s a genius. The guy has this formula for picking games, and more times than not, he’s right. So when he predicted the Irish would win, being an ND fan, of course I got all giddy and stupid, ever excited that he actually thought they would win as well. You see, I could make the prediction that ND will beat Alabama, but everyone would say, “Yeah, yeah, whatever.” But when Dan’l B says so, we stop, pause, and then nod and agree and say, “Yeah, that makes sense.” Then, of course, his prophecy became true, and we can all chalk another one up for the Biggest Conference in all the land.

Like everyone else, I thought Notre Dame would suck this year, but it appears I may be wrong, and these two victories over Bama and Maryland are going to help a lot come Selection Sunday. Dan’l B’s prediction was 9 Big East teams in on that day. Here’s the nine I figure he was talking about: Pitt, UConn, Georgetown, Marquette, Villanova, DePaul, Syracuse, Notre Dame and either West Virginia or Louisville. More likely the Cardinals. Anyway, chalk another one up for the Biggest.

Categories: Big Willie Style, Commentary, Notre Dame
1 Comment »

• Notre Dame will beat Alabama tonight. The unranked Irish will be the underdog in the public’s eye against the #4 or #5 team in the country, depending on which poll you prefer. I believe ND is the better team. I rate Notre Dame 7 points better than Alabama on a neutral court, and they’re playing in South Bend. ND has played some high quality teams–that Butler loss on a semi-neutral court in Indianapolis is starting to look like a high quality loss, and they beat the Terrapins in DC. Meanwhile, Alabama’s resume features one win against a team that figures to make the NCAA tournament: Xavier. Notre Dame is currently a 1-point favorite in Vegas.
• The Big East will send nine teams to the Dance. We should be confident in the quality of play from four schools right now–Pitt, Villanova, UConn, and Notre Dame. The second tier is huge, with eight teams that project to be around the bubble in terms of quality of play right now. The key to sending nine teams to the dance is having 9-10 teams with .500 or better records in conference play, and that’s where terrible seasons from USF and Rutgers come in. Rutgers is looking like they’re in danger of an 0-16 season, and USF is only a bit better. (Sorry Bulls and Scarlet Knights fans.)
• On the morning of March 15, Butler will be undefeated. I’m not sure what kind of impact this might have on the tournament, but I think it’s a fair possibility. They’ve played a tough schedule and beaten all comers so far. There are still a few tests–Purdue is decent and visits on Dec. 16, there’s the home-and-home with Loyola-Chicago, who has played about as well as Georgetown thus far, and in mid-February Butler will draw a mid-major for the Bracket Buster. Aside from that, Butler can breeze through everybody else just as they have the last two times out. If Butler gets through unscathed, will they be considered for a very high seed? I’m thinking that they’ll land in the 4-5 range, but their RPI would point to #1 or #2.

Categories: Commentary, Dan'l B
7 Comments »