Defending the Big East

I don’t have the heart to write about the the Connecticut game just yet. There is something that is a little more pressing that’s starting to piss me off. It’s the notion that the Big East was the most overrated conference in the history of the world. People seemed to think it was wrong that the Big East had 11 teams in the tournament. Well, hey jackass, the league has the most teams out of any conference in the country. The ACC placed 7 of 11 one year, and I’m pretty sure no one said that was the most overrated conference in the history of college basketball. If you don’t think the Big East deserved all 11 teams, who would you leave out? The teams that were ranked 9-11 in the Big East tournament? Gone are the fighting Kembas, Marquette, and Villanova. Oh yeah, two of those teams are in the sweet 16. The only team that seems like they would have worked their way out is Villanova, and even then, their performance before the past 3 weeks was very good. I think the backlash is coming hard on the Big East for the same 3 reasons as everyone else. 

1. The media built them up, and when the media builds something up, it’s normally to tear it down. The Big East could have put 3 teams in the Final Four, and if none of them won, the Big East would be overrated. It’s a joke. Of course, with the lofty build up comes:
2. Unreaslistic expectations. The problem with having so many teams in the tournament, is that people think every single one of them is an elite team. I’ll go through how realistic every team’s chances were in a moment. 
3. Schadenfreude. People want to see the best lose. This is no different. Everyone roots aganist Carolina, Duke, the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Patriots, Steelers and so on for a reason, because they are always good. People love seeing them knocked off their pearch. The Big East is no exception. If people keep saying you are the best conference in the country, they are going to dance on your grave when you are eliminated from the NCAA tournament. Add in the fact that the Big East had a lot of high seeds, the upset factor had a major thing to do with it as well. I’m not saying that the conference didn’t deserve it. After all, we were one of the many that were saying the Big East tournament was the greatest thing in the world. I think that pisses some people off, and they want the Big East taken down a peg. It sure happened this year. 

I mentioned just a little bit ago that the Big East had some unreasonable expectations for the NCAA tournament. Here is every team that made the tournament.

• Pitt
• Syracuse
• G-Town
• St John’s
• UConn
• UC
• Louisville
• Marquette
• Villanova
• Notre Dame
• West Virginia

Out of  those11 teams, 9 had a shot at the Sweet 16. That takes out the Bearcats, and also takes out Syracuse. Cincinnati and Syracuse didn’t lose to a team outside the Big East this season. Such a weird stat. That brings the list to this.

• Pitt
• G-town
• St John’s
• UConn
• Louisville
• Marquette
• Villanova
• ND
• WV

The Big East had two teams advance from that group, so let’s take them out of the picture, and set them on the shelf of good play. That leaves:

• Pitt
• G-town
• St John’s
• Louisville
• Nova
• ND
• WV

Out of those 7, two of them were hampered by injury. St John’s lost DJ Kennedy in the Big East tournament. Georgetown lost Chris Wright for the last 2 weeks of the season, before he came back for VCU. To add to the injury problems, St John’s and Georgetown were run out of the gym. It appeared to me that St John’s really missed Kennedy when they were killed on the glass. Georgetown, well, they weren’t playing well anyway. That leaves:

• Pitt
• UofL
• Nova
• ND
• WV

Out of this group of 5, one team went out on their shield, that being West Virginia. The Mountaineers put up a good fight, but just weren’t good enough to beat Kentucky this year. No shame in that loss.

• Pitt
• UofL
• Nova
• ND

There were a couple of teams in the Big East that not a lot of people who followed the conference believed in for March basketball. A couple of them were mentioned already. Another one was Villanova, who ended the year losing 11 of their last 16 games, and 6 in a row. There is a second team in this group that no one really believed in. Actually, someone could make that case about each of the other 3, but that’s not the point. The other team was Notre Dame. Mike Brey is a good coach, it’s hard to think of a time where his team did anything in the big dance. Bearcats Blog didn’t pick ND to win a game in the Big East tournament. When the brackets game out and they were against two very solid defensive clubs, many picked them to go down in the round of 32. The loss against Florida St was the 6th biggest upset of the tournament. That leaves:

• Pitt
• UofL

The victim of the second biggest upset of the tournament was the Cardinals. Louisville played into their worst case scenario by having another poor road performance. Things were looking a little better before the heart of the team, Preston Knowles, injured his toe and couldn’t even stand. The Cardinals played the last few minutes not to lose, and that never works out well. As for Pittsburgh, they were victim to the third biggest upset of the tournament. (Biggest was VCU over Purdue) The Panthers had the game won, until the foul heard round the world.

So to recap, out of the 9 teams that had a chance to make the sweet 16, two made it, one of them was in gigantic free fall, two were really hurt by injuries, two were upset, one was destroyed, and one fell on their shield. The biggest question to all of this is why did it happen? I’m in the lack of next level talent camp. Look at the games players had in the losses. I’ll do another bullet point for this.

• Yancy Gates 4-11 for UC
• Corey Stokes 4-15 for Nova
• Corey Fisher 7-17 for Nova
• Rick Jackson 7 points, 4 boards in 40 minutes for Syracuse
• Ben Hansbrough 5-13  for ND
• Dwight Hardy 10-23 for St John’s
• Casey Mitchell 3-10 for WV
• Ashton Gibbs 2 second half points for Pitt
• Austin Freeman 3-14 for GT
• Chris Wright 3-13 for GT
• Preston Knowles 3-10 for UoL
• Peyton Siva 1-6 for UofL