Something Needs To Change – Evaluating an Embarrassing Weekend for the Big East
March 20, 2011 8:33 am by Big Willie StyleUgh. I never thought this year’s tournament would be close to resembling the debacle that last year’s NCAA Tournament was for the Big East, but it’s getting there very quickly. After watching our teams drop like flies for the second year in a row, one thing is very clear: Something needs to change. Because it appears that the Big East is not nearly as good as we thought they were. On Selection Sunday, I was upset that Big East would be paired up against each other in the second round (Cincy-UConn & Cuse-Marquette) because one team would have to be eliminated. But now it appears to be a blessing, because that seems to be the only way we can get teams into the Sweet 16. Below are 2010′s results. 8 teams entered the tournament. Only two survive the first weekend. Only one in the Elite 8. Thank goodness there was one in the Final Four.
2010 Results
#3 Seed Georgetown Loses to #14 Ohio 97-83
#1 Seed Syracuse Loses to #5 Seed Butler 63-59
#3 Seed Pittsburgh Loses to #6 Seed Xavier 71-68
#6 Seed Marquette Loses to # 11 Seed Washington 82-64
#6 Seed Notre Dame Loses to #11 Old Dominion 51-50
#2 Seed Villanova Loses to #10 Seed St. Mary’s 75-68
#9 Seed Louisville Loses to Number #8 Seed California 77-62
#2 Seed West Virginia Loses to #1 Seed Duke 78-57 in the Final Four
If you notice, those are almost all lower seeds beating our teams. Same story this year. With only UConn, Notre Dame & the Syracuse-Marquette winner left, this year’s edition to the NCAA tournament may be even more embarrassing to the Big East. With 11 entries and only 3 surviving the first weekend? The Big East Conference has some decisions to make. And that’s all assuming ND wins tonight and gets us 3 in the Sweet 16. Last year, West Virginia beating #1 Seed Kentucky and making the Final Four gave the Big East a bit of a pass as people tend to forget about the rest of the conference’s struggles when you have a team or two playing on the final weekend. This year, we may need that to happen again to avoid some serious well-deserved mockery from other conferences.
Possible solutions to this problem:
1. We’ve brought up the idea before of Big East teams having problems getting in foul trouble in the NCAAs because Big East officials tend to let more contact go in conference. Physical teams like Pitt seems to struggle with this every season. Perhaps the Big East moves to try and get officials to tighten up the physical contact during the season so our teams don’t play quite as physical and don’t have to change their style of play as much in the tournament. I don’t like this idea, but I like it more than seeing our teams all go down in the first weekend.
2. I know we’re biased, but I seriously still don’t believe that our teams are worse than other teams around the nation. I don’t actually think that Georgetown is worse than VCU, or that Villanova is worse than Mason, or that St. John’s is worse than Gonzaga. I realize that this is very hard to argue when all of them are losing, but I saw what we did in November and December, how the Big East teams dominated the other conferences. I saw how during the early part of the conference season we had big inter-conference victories like UConn over Texas and St. John’s over Duke. Perhaps this all goes back to the problem of Big East teams beating up on other Big East teams. Momentum is a more powerful weapon than talent in this tournament. So many of our schools went into this tournament playing .500 or worse ball down the stretch. This has a lot to due with playing so many tough games every week. Villanova, St. John’s, West Virginia, Georgetown, Marquette, Cincinnati and even Pittsburgh did not have any real consistently impressive numbers during late February. Notre Dame, UConn, Syracuse and Louisville all seemed to have higher winning percentages down the stretch in late February. And other than Louisville, these are the teams still around.
The solution?
As we’ve stated before, it’s time to thin this conference out. We need to provide more victories for teams like Villanova and Georgetown so they don’t go into the tournament on such a down. Simply put, we need to add some bottom feeders to this league. I don’t think the 18 game schedule is any harder than a 16 game schedule, but I do think some easier games in that schedule might help. TCU joining will certainly help here. The Big East also needs to add UCF and Houston. This will help football immensely, it will help the Texas and Florida schools in recruiting by creating a rivalry and buzz about the Big East in the area, and most importantly for basketball, it will provide easier games for teams like West Virginia, who now will get a game against Houston, rather than a second go-round with Pitt. Hopefully a couple easier wins will help confidence in our teams, and this confidence will enable them to play up to their potential, as they all did in November and December. Obviously, some would mock a 19 team league. But to me, it’s perfect. In hoops, you’d play everyone once. The BE Tournament would need adjusting but when TCU enters that’s something that’ll have to happen anyway. In football, UCF & Houston’s additions combined with Villanova moving up would give the conference a 12 team league. Perfect.
Something has got to change. Last year, West Virginia made many forgot about the Big East’s early round woes. Hopefully, one of our teams that’s still around can do the same by making a Final Four run of their own.
Categories: Commentary
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10 Responses to “Something Needs To Change – Evaluating an Embarrassing Weekend for the Big East”
And it continues as ND gets humiliated by an average FSU team
All right, at least you admit your bias, but I believe you’re WAY off on solution. Foremost, is your misguided belief about momentum, etc from your conference losses. Reason why is you have many good teams, but obviously not any great teams as the tourny has proven. Padding a schedule for more wins will not improve any team. It will only make the fall from grace that much more difficult to endure year in and out.
Only way to cure the issue is to objectively be able to view your conference. I know this is difficult given all of the media bias given to the east coast in general, and the ESPN neverending showcasing. If your not willing to truely watch and enjoy many games from many conferences that exist beyond the Eastern Timezone, you will never realize where the problem lies.
Multiple teams defeating each other in conference play is great for fan viewing pleasure and hype, but it only proves that there is no worthy dominating team that is truely a nationwide legitimate contender. When what occured in the Big East this year happens, it only proves the parity of the conference involved at merely a ‘good’ level of play. That’s fine for the conference, but not indicative of NCAA competetiveness.
And, on a final note, your conference tournament is just all wrong. It’s a 16 team league. No need for any byes. Why reward anyone for league play when it is unneccessary! The reward is in the seeding for regular season. That’s plain and simple, but the Big East has that wrong as well.
Simply another indicator of a conference that is not functioning properly, and values hype over substance. It’s a tournament. Run it like one! No need to reinvent the wheel because the league is trying to avoid an upset in early rounds.
GurualaKing,
Certainly we’re biased here; nothing wrong with that. Comments:
(1) Media bias has zero impact on kenpom.com, sagarin.com, and RPI rankings. By all three measures, all 11 Big East teams justifiably earned places in the tournament. Their seedings were generally reasonable. (I personally felt Georgetown and Villanova were overrated as #6 and #9 seeds however).
(2) The Big East earned its reputation by winning out of conference better than anyone. The conference had the best combination of non-conference record and non-conference strength of schedule in the country. That’s not a result of media bias either, and it includes all games down to bottom-feeding DePaul.
(3) Its easy to forget what happened more than a week or two ago. “What have you done for me lately?” is not a particularly effective method for judging anything.
(4) Sample size. Winning and losing in the tournament does not trump everything else that has happened.
I’m as disappointed as any fan, but I won’t stop using sound reason as so many are.
All good points. I’ve got to side with Dan’l B here. It’s not debatable that the Big East should have gotten 11 teams in. There never was a debate, and there was good reason for that.
However, GurualaKing is right about one thing, while an east coast bias can get you a higher seed, it deosn’t get you buckets in the tournament. Perhaps some Big East teams were over seeded.
The one point which I think GurualaKing has completely wrong is momentum. And Dan’B, I know you may disagree with this too, but momentum is the reason why hitters in baseball go through hot and cold streaks, it’s the reason why a hot goalie carries teams in the NHL playoffs and it’s the reason why a team like the Green Bay Packers can win the Super Bowl.
You can’t deny this is a a clear factor in how and why teams advance. Simply put, what was the last talented team that won the NCAA championship while not playing well? Take the 06 UConn Huskies, who were perhaps the most talented team in the past decade. They weren’t playing well during the tounament season, and no even that ammount of talent could survive the lack of momentum. This is where thinning out the conference may make sense.
It’s part of the beauty of collegiate tournaments that these teams were sent packing by less acclaimed foes. Those foes GOT A CHANCE to challenge the big boys in the Dance. Contrast that with the NCAA’s greatest and only big waste of breath, college football.
Tournament expansion might be ridiculed, but it’s worth getting some VCUs in.
Media bias certainly CAN affect the power rankings by overvaluing intra-conference play… If West Virginia (for example… not picking on WVA) is overrated, then the boost a team gets in the power ranking is magnified when they beat them, and the loss to them is not as damaging to the power ranking.
You can rationalize all you want, but the Tournament is the measuring stick by which every team and conference is measured. If you guys were winning you wouldn’t be rationalizing. You may believe the arguments you put forward, but no one from the other conferences will.
Here is the argument that the rest of us believe about the Big East.
The Big East has good teams, very good coaches, and rabid fans but not a lot of great players, NBA type players. When you play teams w/ better athletes and better players, you get shown the door.
Does anybody believe that Arizona would still be dancing if Derrick Williams was just a solid 1st team All Pac 10 PF and not a NBA lottery pick? UK, Arizona, Ohio St., KU, UNC, SDSU, BYU, FSU, Richmond, Duke, Wisconsin, and Florida all have pro prospects that project higher than anyone in the Big East except Kemba Walker. Lo and behold, UConn is still dancing. Villanova and Mouphtaou Yarou may be the one anomaly.
VCU and Butler, also anomalies in my argument, have more heart and desire than most of the field and that worked for them. But I doubt either gets out of the Sweet 16.
[...] some interesting arguments discussed in Will’s weekend post-mortem. Here’s a few worthy of responses: Media bias certainly CAN affect the power rankings by [...]
FYI – the Big East still #*$&#(*$&@)($*#&@$)(#*&$. I look back on all the times Big East bloggers were cat-calling Duke and UNC and laugh.
Those two teams have more NBA lottery picks than your whole conference. LOL!!!!! U can’t even say anything, cause it’s true! Chubby East Coast inner city ballers may be ready to shoot and foul, but they can’t run with real athletes.
They should change the name of the Big East to the Big Mac. LOL!!! Fast food conference, advertises like McDonald’s but delivers a fast food product.