The best and the brightest snippets across the Big East ’sphere:

• The FanHouse: “It’s going to be a big question about just how much Pitt has left. The Championship game will be their 4th in 4 days. Pitt rarely goes much deeper than 7. Georgetown had a first round bye and goes about 9 deep. They have looked very strong and only Jonathan Wallace has played 30 minutes or more in their first 2 games.”
• Big East Basketball Report: “Here is the crazy thing, Pitt has moved all the way to #17 in the latest RPI rankings following this win. The played 12 games without starting poit guard Levance Fields and then lost their first three games that he returned as he was assimilated back into the mix. Take away those 15 games and Pitt is 16-2 with neutral floor victories against Duke, Louisville and Marquette along with road wins against Syracuse and Washington.”
• The Mountain Top: “Again, like I said it’s not a game you should expect to win against the #1 seed team, and WVU didn’t play anywhere close to well enough to pull off the upset. But three games in three nights does that to a team, and I honestly don’t see Marquette or Pitt (looks like it will be Pitt) with much of a chance at all against the Hoyas tomorrow night.”
• The Van Buren Boys: “With a nearly 2 to 1 rebound advantage of the ‘Neers, the paint, as well as the entire garden floor, belonged to the Hoyas. The big guy looked pumped up out there from tip-off.”
• The FanHouse: “Georgetown Suddenly Looks Scary Good. Against Villanova it was bombing them into oblivion from the 3-point line. Tonight with the Mountaineers, it was going inside, attacking the basket, and letting Roy Hibbert wreak havoc inside. The defense in both games was outstanding. I don’t think they just turned it on in the Big East Tournament, but they have seemed to regrouped and rediscovered something. Their attitude and mannerisms are much more aggressive and attacking.”
• Black and Green Irish Men’s Basketball Report: “Regarding Notre Dame’s seeding, the Irish got some help from St. Joseph’s, Illinois, and Arkansas today. Hopping over Xavier in the bracket is probably a little farfetched, but both Purdue and Vanderbilt could have taken a 4 seed away from ND with wins in their tournaments.”
• Pitt Blather: “Marquette and their fans can take, um, solace in the moral victory. That their team didn’t quit. That they rallied and fought and clawed back into the game. All good things. I’ll take the real thing. Plus the fact that even as Marquette made a comeback, Pitt never lost it. They did what was needed. They regained their composure.”
• The Quad: “In the signature moment (so far, anyway) of this year’s Big East tournament — Joe Alexander’s dunk in the waning moments of West Virginia’s victory over Connecticut — Raftery appears to have added another hallmark call to a highlight that will surely appear on Big East tournament highlight reels for years to come. “Send it in Joe,” he said, bellowing in the familiar pitch that he used in his oft-repeated Jerome call. The difference is that he added on the replay, “With alacrity.” (Now if that doesn’t send you scrambling to the thesaurus, I don’t know what will.) He also called the dunk a “Taiwan special,” referencing the fact that Alexander was born in Taiwan.”
• The FanHouse: “So there you have it: Luke Harangody, the clear choice for Big East Player of the Year, likes to relax by watching people get run over by mules.”
  
  
  

Categories: BlogWatch, donald
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• The Marquette-Georgetown game this weekend was one of the best Big East games all season long (we’ve had a ton this year). Much sympathy to Big Willie who was forced over to the Florida game. Big play after big play from both teams. If you have a few minutes in your day, watch the clips below — it’s a condensed version of the end of regulation.

  Georgetown down 57-59 with 1:27 left. This happens:
  

  
  
  
  On the next play…
  
  
  
  Burke misses the free-throw, so its Marquette 61, Georgetown 59, when Hibbert makes a great pass to a cutting Ewing…
  
  
  
  Ewing makes 1 of 2 free throws, and Georgetown fouls Wes Matthews of Marquette, who makes both free throws. At this point, the score is Marquette 63, Georgetown 60. Then this:
  
  
  
  My take: he did get fouled, Jonathan Wallace sold the foul really well…but that was like the fourth straight call that Georgetown got in a row.

  More links from the blogosphere: Cracked Sidewalks, Hoya Saxa, and AOL FanHouse, where Charles Rich breaks out the truth:

  You know, some people will say that Georgetown has something magical happening very quietly. Others will say that they are just getting some incredible luck/breaks/calls by the refs that have to go the other way at some point.

  I can understand both views, but I’m leaning towards luck issue. Not that it can’t carry them pretty far. Not that they the Hoyas didn’t put themselves in the position to win those games. Not that Georgetown is a bad team or isn’t capable of winning a lot of games in March without getting things to fall their way. It’s just that the Big East play has been exceptional in the bounces going Georgetown’s way.

  Whether it was the block/goaltend call at West Virginia; a last second “foul” that 9 times out of 10 would be a no-call; and now getting a 3-point foul called in the final seconds Georgetown has had the late calls go in their favor.

  Not to give myself credit here, but my Duke-Georgetown theory is really holding up.

• This weekend, Syracuse was the anti-Georgetown, and Georgetown the anti-Syracuse. Georgetown somehow won a game they totally didn’t deserve to win (see Jonathan Wallace getting “fouled” at the end of regulation above, as well as . Syracuse, on the other hand, found a way to lose a game to Pittsburgh in which they were up by 11 with less than 4 minutes to go.
• One thing that has always amazed me about Georgetown is their ability to use the last 10 seconds of the shot clock as effectively as the first 10 seconds (or any other 10 seconds, on the other hand). Coach Thompson must run some sort of drill to ensure that they don’t freak out with the shot clock expiring. More often than not, they get a backdoor pass or an open three in the last few seconds, something that is utterly devastating to the defense.
• West Virginia still has no quality win. They could have gotten one this weekend against UConn, but fell behind early. Monday’s WVU-Pitt game will be an absolute must for both teams. The winner of that game makes the NCAAs. The Big East may be the biggest, baddest conference out there, but they aren’t sending 7 teams to the big dance. Monday’s matchup will be something to watch. Mark my words: Joe Alexander will disappear. Why? I’ll be watching the game. He is one of those players that suck so hard when I’m watching, but put up big games when I’m not (such as his 32 point outburst against UConn this weekend).

Categories: Commentary, BlogWatch, Georgetown, donald, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, West Virginia, Marquette, Postseason
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• Say hello to The Mountain Top, which covers West Virginia basketball (It’s the first blog I know about that covers West Virginia — have there been others?). The guys (or gals) over there do a good job in summarizing the WVU-Georgetown game last night. What a game it was — it came down to Da’Sean Butler driving the baseline and putting up a shot which Patrick Ewing Jr. blocked/goaltended, thus securing the Georgetown win. Check out the highlights and judge the call for yourself:

  (I have to give major props to ESPN for realizing that they could never fight sports bloggers recording their content and putting it up. Their new web video player, and the ability to embed it in any page is dope. They in turn get way more control than before– they control what content gets showed, maintain their branding, and know exactly which bloggers are doing this. Brilliant move, guys.)

• UConn!!!!!! Calhoun sums up the gigantic win:
  

  “To do what we did is certainly the greatest I’ve had and it’s going to get up there since the national championship team beat Georgia Tech,” he said. “Quite frankly, they deserve more than a hug from me. They deserve one from the state of Connecticut, from the university, from our fans.”

• Check this out. Apparently some prank callers got a handle of the weekly Big East media conference call number/passcode. Normally, journalists ask questions to the coaches in the league. This past week, the prank callers asked questions about the sexual relations between the students and players. The link has the audio of the call, which is slightly amusing.

Categories: Commentary, BlogWatch, Georgetown, donald, Connecticut, West Virginia, Game Banter
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John Gasaway previews the first eight alphabetically. I’m not going to review or summarize — read it and draw your own conclusions.

Instead, I’m going to put on my UConn fanboy hat. There’s reason for tremendous optimism for the Huskies this year. They’re bringing back essentially the entire rotation, all sophomores and juniors now (obvious). They led the conference in defense in 06-07 (semi-obvious). They’ll have one of the more efficient floor generals in the conference from last year in Price (not-so-obvious). Don’t agree? That’s what reading the aforementioned article is for.

The offense can only get better as someone, anyone?!, figures out how to score efficiently this time around. Price will find any scorers that emerge, and there’s depth everywhere. It’d be insane to expect or even hope for championship-caliber basketball in Storrs, but with all the “potential” “upside” here, it feels sort of like 1998 or 2003.

Categories: BlogWatch, Dan'l B, Connecticut
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A Big East overview comes in as the 40th article in Basketball Prospectus’ short history. It’s the site’s inaugural season, but there are the seeds of something new and exciting here.

The overview raises the same questions borne from Beast expansion — what are the implications of a 16-team conference? Why doesn’t everybody play each other each year? Well at least the answers to the second question are changing in 2009 (18 games, one full round robin plus three “rivalry” games) … There’s the usual predictions with nothing too surprising to say, and the projected standings present the usual sense of probable outcomes more than prognostic ones. … Gasaway correctly notes that offense separated the wheat from the chaff last year, with Georgetown being one of the more impressive offenses to come along in some time. It’s still early for analysis, but I’m strongly anticipate Ken Pomeroy’s Beast preview, which should look like this one on the Big 12 last year.

The authors at Basketball Prospectus should not be new to anyone–John Gasaway (Big Ten Wonk) and Ken Pomeroy (kenpom.com) continue what they started as “part-time” hobbies (good idea!) at this Baseball Prospectus spinoff. I’m a long-time junkie of the original BP. The baseball formula worked very well, and there’s little reason not to expect the same for other sports. Donald might not agree, but I see a lot of potential for basketball research. There’s a huge gulf between what announcers say and what really matters. If baseball provides any indication, this gulf will persist for quite a long time, if not forever. Analysis will inevitably invade the mainstream — I’ll put the over/under on Jim Nance dropping “tempo-based ratings” in context at 5 years.

Categories: BlogWatch, Dan'l B
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