Georgetown - The Hoyas are 12-3 and finish with St. John’s, at Marquette and Louisville. If the Hoyas were to lose to Marquette and Louisville they would end up 13-5 and lose a tiebreaker to both teams. Two wins would assure the Hoyas of a bye. Even though GTown is in a good position, they have to be careful of a letdown and must defeat either Marquette or Louisville to enter the BET with some momentum.

Louisville - The Cards are 12-3 and finish with home games against Notre Dame and Villanova along with a final game at Georgetown. Although the Cards should win both home games, ND is capable of an upset. If the Cards lose to ND and GTown they will end up with a record of 13-5 and lose tiebreakers to the Irish and UConn. Louisville has two wins over Marquette and a win over Georgetown. If the Cardinals win two of the last three they will secure a bye.

Notre Dame - The Irish are 11-3 and have three of the final four games on the road. Although they have been unbeatable at home, they have shown some vulnerability away. With splits against UConn and Marquette, the Irish lose tiebreaker vs. Georgetown and still have to travel to Louisville this Thursday. The game at DePaul is not a gimme, seeing that it is a rivalry game. ND should beat St. John’s at home and USF away. If the Irish split their remaining four games they will end up 13-5. A Marquette victory over Georgetown might force the Irish to play a Wednesday game.

UConn - The Huskies are 10-4 and suffered a crucial loss at Nova on Saturday. Remaining games are at Rutgers tonight, West Virginia Saturday and at Providence and home to Cincinnati next week. The Huskies must win 3 of the last 4 to put themselves in a good position at 13-5. UConn has trouble with Providence and West Virginia is still a mystery team. Two losses will probably push UConn to a Wednesday game. The Huskies lose a tiebreaker to Georgetown and win tiebreakers vs. Louisville and Marquette. The UConn-ND tiebreaker will be determined by the Irish game vs. Louisville this Thursday.

****UPDATE***** In checking all possibilities, if Marquette were to lose one of their final two league games, UConn and ND would have to win 2 of their remaining four games to receive a bye.

Complicated???? Not really…… Typical???? You bet….. WELCOME TO THE BIG EAST!

Last year I said they were a poor man’s Villanova. They’re not a poor man’s anybody this year.

• Still wild: They’re still frenetic on defense and on the offensive boards. It makes for fun basketball to watch, especially because they’re amazingly athletic. Most teams will be absolutely exasperated by their play. Those few teams that retain composure and make quick, timely cuts to the basket will be able to expose Marquette’s trapping, gambling defense.
• Dominic James. Wow.: He is still as athletic as they come. In previous years, James would go solo and take on two or three defenders (and amazingly, scoring a significant amount of the time). This year, he seems to have matured a bit, but I feel this is one of the key areas for James and Marquette. Case in point:
  
  This is a 3 on 1 that James takes all the way; he scores a bucket and gets fouled in the act. What could be better? He had a great passing angle to Barro who could have wound up with a dunk. This is just one play, but I think it’s indicative of James’s play — and something to watch out for.

• Marquette’s guards get into the lane with ease, and this is their offense. Wisconsin played mostly man-to-man today and couldn’t stop anybody from getting into the lane. The result was a lot of easy dunks and layups for Burke and Barro, and open threes for the rest of the guards. I don’t believe many teams in the nation can match up man to man against Marquette’s guards, so most teams ought to try playing zone on them.
• Tom Crean looks a lot like Tom Arnold. I’m not the first to make this observation.

Frontcourt  - Ousmane Barro (8.1ppg, 6.9rpg) returns to the post position Barro improved last year as the season progressed and is tough down low. Starting SF Lazar Hayward (6.6ppg, 3.6rpg) also comes back. Hayward split time with Dan Fitzgerald (7.4ppg, 3.9rpg) and either can start. Lawrence Blackledge (1.7ppg, 1.4rpg) will give Barro rest time and Dwight Burke (0.8ppg, 1.8rpg) can spell the duo at SF. This is one of many strengths for the Golden Eagles. GRADE - A-

Backcourt - Dominic James (14.9ppg, 4.9apg) may be the best player in the league. He just has to be more careful with his shot selection. He is a reliable point man, but has to stay under control and out of foul trouble. Jerel McNeal (14.7ppg, 4.8rpg) returns at SG. If James were not here, he would be the one to carry the team. Probably the best defensive player in the BE, he doesn’t have a weakness. Wesley Matthews (12.6ppg, 5.3rpg) is the SF. Matthews would be a star with any team in the league. Here he has to share the limelight with James and McNeal. David Cubillian (5.5ppg, 1.6apg) is primarily a point guard but will see time at all three backcourt positions. GRADE - A+

Depth - The Eagles are really deep down low with either Fitzgerald or Hayward coming off the bench. Tom Crean has a ton of talent at the starting positions but can bring in one of the above down low and Cubillian on the perimeter. Maurice Acker, a transfer from Ball State was rookie of the year in the MAC two years ago will also be a plus off the bench. GRADE - B+

Outlook - Barring injuries, this team seems to have it all. What remains to be seen is how they will stack up against Georgetown and Louisvile. I see no reason why Marquette should have to play on Wednesday at MSG in March. They will be one of the top four seeds….maybe even #1. GRADE - A

NOTRE DAME - A very disappointing loss in round one to Winthrop. I know everyone and their brothers were talking up Winthrop before the tourney began but the Irish didn’t lose because Winthrop is another George Mason. When a team shoots 4-13 from the free throw line you just assume they are a bad free throw shooting squad. Not the case here. The Irish shot about 75% for the year from the line. Shooting 31% in a tourney game is sure to get you a loss. ND shot 40% from the 3 point line this season but could manage 4 for 22 or 18% in the Winthrop game. They were also outrebounded 43-41. All this from a team that looked very good coming off the tough Georgetown loss in the BET. But let’s not forget that Winthrop was on an 18 game win streak with their most impressive wins over Mississippi State and High Point (twice). The Irish picked a bad time to have tourney jitters against a team that dominated squads like Radford, Coastal Carolina, and Liberty in conference. This loss was a huge blow to the reputation of the Big East.

Marquette - The Eagles just are not very good. I’m sure with McNeal they would have made a better showing but any team with a warm body up front could dominate Marquette at the end of the season. Shame because they were on a roll early on and just couldn’t get it going when it counted. 

Villanova - The worst thing that could have happened to Scottie Reynolds was scoring 40 against UConn. The Cats went 2-3 from that point on. Reynolds began to play like he had no teammates and wanted to be the whole show. He pushed Sumpter into a supporting role and Nardi was too injured to take charge of the team. Was Jay Wright looking to sell a package to the Sixers with Reynolds as the star and Wright as coach? When Reynolds got the ball it was time for all teammates to go wait in the bench area until he either took a 35 foot jumper or tried to drive through all 5 opponents on the floor. Don’t get me wrong, Scottie is a tremendous talent. He should just try a little to be a team  player. His one-man show probably cost Villanova a chance to move on to the 2nd round.

Louisville - Nice first round crushing of Stanford, an average team from a weak league (with way too much respect in the seedings). Sosa had 16 in that win, but the troubling fact from that game is that he only had 1 assist. Today against Texas A&M he took one of the worst shots at the end of a game that I have ever seen. Oh, yeah, he did have 31 points. AND 1 assist. Here is a point guard who is a Scottie Reynolds wannabe. 47 points in two games and 2 assists! I’m sure that’s not the shot Pitino called for, down one with 15 seconds left. Or would Rick wind the clock down to have his freshman point guard fire one up from 25 feet? Someone has to tell these Freshmen point guards that there are TEAMMATES who are on scholarship too.

Pitt - Still going! It took an overtime to extend the Panthers’ season after blowing a 19 point lead in the second half. But they do play like a team and deserve to be where they are. More on them later.

Georgetown - The Hoyas are the toast of the Big East for making toast out of Jared Dudley and his headband teammates. BC is home again…… knocked out again by a Big East team (Nova erased them last year). Still fun to watch the Hoyas run an offense like no other BE team and when they turn up the heat on D they can put the brakes on most teams. More on them later.

Maybe when the pundits claimed this a down year for the Big East they weren’t far off target. Sure looked like our crying about ND’s 6 seed was off target. Syracuse almost lost the 1st round of the NIT, UConn could only beat Division One bottom dwellers and three of our six went out on Day 1. But we still have two in the dance.

So…… at this point we have 2 teams in the Sweet Sixteen. The scoreboard shows the ACC has one, SEC has three, Big 12 has two, Big Ten has one, Pac 10 has three, Conference USA has one, Missouri Valley has one, Mountain West has one and the Horizon has one.