Comments on: You Say These Tournaments Aren’t Important? http://www.bigeasthoops.com/2007/03/11/152/ Bloggin' Big East basketball since way back (2006). Sun, 12 Oct 2008 18:13:08 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.4 by: donald http://www.bigeasthoops.com/2007/03/11/152/#comment-824 Mon, 12 Mar 2007 04:11:28 +0000 http://www.bigeasthoops.com/2007/03/11/152/#comment-824 By the way -- Big East championship is the longest running conference tourney at any single location (25 years). And of course, it's the greatest location ever..the mecca of college hoops! By the way — Big East championship is the longest running conference tourney at any single location (25 years). And of course, it’s the greatest location ever..the mecca of college hoops!

]]> by: donald http://www.bigeasthoops.com/2007/03/11/152/#comment-823 Mon, 12 Mar 2007 04:02:41 +0000 http://www.bigeasthoops.com/2007/03/11/152/#comment-823 Great post. I agree that conference tournaments still mean something as well -- I love watching teams with absolutely no business in the NCAAs get in because they have a great run in their conference tournament. It's what makes the NCAA tournament even wackier -- that some deserving teams don't get in because some team makes a run in their tournament. It might not "matter" for some of the top dog teams, but they're only a handful of them. Furthermore, the rivalries, as the Hoya fan above points out, make conference tournaments wonderful even for the top dog teams, e.g. team A gets knocked out of the number 1 rating by team B, so team A wants to exact revenge on team B. Your example of McNamara is a great one -- people will be talking about that four day run for ages. Great post. I agree that conference tournaments still mean something as well — I love watching teams with absolutely no business in the NCAAs get in because they have a great run in their conference tournament. It’s what makes the NCAA tournament even wackier — that some deserving teams don’t get in because some team makes a run in their tournament.

It might not “matter” for some of the top dog teams, but they’re only a handful of them. Furthermore, the rivalries, as the Hoya fan above points out, make conference tournaments wonderful even for the top dog teams, e.g. team A gets knocked out of the number 1 rating by team B, so team A wants to exact revenge on team B.

Your example of McNamara is a great one — people will be talking about that four day run for ages.

]]> by: Anonymous Hoya http://www.bigeasthoops.com/2007/03/11/152/#comment-822 Mon, 12 Mar 2007 03:37:29 +0000 http://www.bigeasthoops.com/2007/03/11/152/#comment-822 I'm with you about the commentary on the tournaments. And there's one other point that your excellent post left out: this is where the rivalries are. It's the conference tournaments that create the Georgetown-Syracuse; Ohio State-Michigan; Duke-UNC; UCLA-USC match ups. And the fans from the entire conference gathers in one city for several days of yelling at each other. Even if the game is meaningless, the fans are going to take these contests seriously. The media can decide not to care if they prefer. But this is a huge part of what makes college basketball so great. I’m with you about the commentary on the tournaments. And there’s one other point that your excellent post left out: this is where the rivalries are. It’s the conference tournaments that create the Georgetown-Syracuse; Ohio State-Michigan; Duke-UNC; UCLA-USC match ups. And the fans from the entire conference gathers in one city for several days of yelling at each other. Even if the game is meaningless, the fans are going to take these contests seriously. The media can decide not to care if they prefer. But this is a huge part of what makes college basketball so great.

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