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Archive for March, 2011

Overrated???? You Betcha !!

March 21, 2011 8:39 am by Coach O

Ok, the Big East had an embarrassing weekend in the NCAA tournament. Three number one seeds will be in the Sweet Sixteen. One will not… Pitt. Three number two seeds will be in the Sweet Sixteen. One will not… Notre Dame. Were these two teams overseeded? Probably not. They both had wonderful seasons. They both played great during the regular season. They both went out early in the Big East Tournament. They both went out early in the NCAA. Disappointing? Absolutely! But what about the other seven Big East teams that are home watching the rest of the tounrey?

Louisville was embarrassed by Morehead State. St. John’s, even without D.J. Kennedy tried to continue a great run but was stopped by a good (not great) Gonzaga team. Villanova shouldn’t have even been in the NCAA’s and proved it by losing to tournament darling George Mason. West Virginia did play well but lost to Kentucky, a team that may be a Final 8 team if they can get by a very good Ohio State team. Georgetown entered the NCAA’s reeling and continued to flounder in an embarrassing loss to VCU. Can we destroy Cincinnati for losing to UConn? Or Syracuse for being knocked out by Marquette? Maybe not. They both lost to the same teams during the regular season.

As Big Willie said in the previous post, something has to be done. The Big East cannot rest on the laurels of sweeping pre season tournaments. Maybe other teams don’t get giddy when winning in November. They save it for March. Parity is here. VCU, Butler, Richmond…. they are all good teams. They have proved it.They are still playing. They don’t face top teams every night like the teams in the Big East do. They get better as the season goes on. The ACC has two top teams every year. The Mountain West has two good teams. The SEC has Kentucky and Florida year in year out. The Big Ten showcases a couple of top teams every year. The Big East has four to six top teams every year. Too many battles week in week out during the regular season. Too many top teams coming into the NCAA off a crushing loss in the Big East tourney. Is it good to enter the NCAA tournament off a deflating loss as 10 Big East teams did or off a tourney championship as Richmond and Butler did? UConn won the Big East Tourney and is in the Sweet Sixteen. They weren’t considered going into the BET but are playing great right now and show the effects of what winning can do. Last year WVU won the Big East and went to the Final Four. A team can’t go into the NCAA doubting themselves.

Should we have gotten 11 teams in? No. Ten in? probably. Will Pitt or Notre Dame ever make it to the Final Four? Maybe not. Teams that have to revamp their style of play like Pitt are destined to lose. Teams that build their gameplan on three point shooting like Notre Dame will have a cold shooting night like ND did last night.

What is the answer? Should they move the Big East tourney into the NCAA tourney, taking one whole bracket and giving it to the sixteen BE teams and award the winner an automatic Final Four berth? Ha Ha NO! Should they stop gushing over the Big East and look at the reality of parity? Definitely! The Big East has some very good teams. It is obviously the most highly competitive league in the country. But it is not an NCAA powerhouse conference. Hopefully UConn and Marquette can move deep into the tourney. It would be nice after having been crushed by the deflating weekend we have just endured.

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Something Needs To Change – Evaluating an Embarrassing Weekend for the Big East

March 20, 2011 8:33 am by Big Willie Style

Ugh. 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.

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