B/A the Big East B-ball break Up?

[hdog1017]

I'd like to see the University of Connecticut get in.  Then I would add Saint Louis as the 12th to balance it out since they have the arch. 

[Silkk the Shaka]

I'm not really sure it's a Milwaukee word, so much as it's a word that weirdos on the board used so much it drove the otherwise light-handed mods to do something about it. I've never heard it spoken aloud in my life and only ever encountered it here.

Same

[SaveOD238]

USF and Rutgers were rarely any good so they remain the same.

Honestly, Rutgers was a big winner in all of this.  They continue to suck on the court and on the field, but they get that sweet Big10 money and home games against Penn St, Ohio St, Michigan, and Michigan St every year. 

USF is honestly in a pretty similar situation to where they were in the Big East.  No one cares about them nationally, but every once in a while they put together a decent team, and it's easier to compete in a watered-down conference.  I wouldn't be surprised to see them get the call-up with UCF (a better program in hoops and football) to a major conference looking to get into Florida.

[SaveOD238]

On the Marquette hoops side of things, we have definitely seen a down-turn, but I think it's mostly because the other schools took advantage of the move and we didnt.  Remember that MU was the only team in the 16-team Big East to never finish below .500 in conference, but a lot of that was because we beat up on the bad teams and then usually held our own against the average teams.  In those days Seton Hall, Rutgers, Depaul, Providence, St. Johns were all good for 1-2 wins per year each, and you only needed 3-4 more to get to .500.

Since the move, Seton Hall and Providence especially have taken advantage of playing in a smaller conference without the big dogs of Cuse, UConn, LVille, etc to improve their recruiting and on-court performance.  We're a little down, but also we've suffered because those programs have risen.  It also doesn't help that none of the new programs have been bottom feeders.  There's only so much room at the top, so Marquette and (especially) Georgetown have been crowded out.  This league is SO much more competitive because it is so much more balanced.

[Mr. Sand-Knit]

Rank the schools bu how long their head coach has been there.  That is about how the standings will look, Mu is in a rebuild as are others

[JamilJaeJamailJrJuan]

Looking back, one could argue Pitt, Louisville, Rutgers, UCONN are worse off.  Cuse is neutral but ND is a winner. Cincinnati and WVU a push to a plus.

In the Real Big East, the winners are Nova, Hall, Creighton, Xavier, and Providence. DePaul and Butler is a push to positive. SJU, GTwon and MU are down. 

Three national championships were directly or indirectly tied to the Big East during the breakup and beyond. 

Thoughts

Not sure how Cincinnati is a winner.  Sure, they've done fine since moving to the AAC, but I can assure you they're not happy there.  Other than that, I mostly agree.  Butler is a big winner. Sure, they won't make the dance every year because they now play in a real conference, but their talent level has risen considerably since moving and it was a huge win for the program.

[muguru]

The biggest disappointment for me has been when they joined this new BE, I really and truly thought they'd run through it Memphis style every year. Not because the rest of the league was that bad, but because of where MU was as a program at that time vis a vis the others that joined(or were brought over). I just thought they'd be head and shoulders above everyone else, and like I said, given where MU was as a program at the time, those expectations were not unrealistic at all.

So for them to be where they are now...regardless of the circumstances, is IMO a monumental drop. I was around for the Dukiet days, and the Deane days..and after TC took over the program, I never would have imagined dropping to those depths again, and what I mean by that is no national relevance, missing tournies altogether(even though NIT is irrelevant, it's still postseason). It wasn't that long ago, MU was amongst the top of the NCAA in consecutive NCAA appearances, they were making sweet 16's, Elite 8's, and were a well known(and respected) commodity in NCAA hoops.Now, no one nationally talks about Marquette. They are just another of the 350+ NCAA programs...and irrelevant to most people.

How can you not find that perplexing, embarrassing and downright sad??

[MU86NC]

The biggest disappointment for me has been when they joined this new BE, I really and truly thought they'd run through it Memphis style every year. Not because the rest of the league was that bad, but because of where MU was as a program at that time vis a vis the others that joined(or were brought over). I just thought they'd be head and shoulders above everyone else, and like I said, given where MU was as a program at the time, those expectations were not unrealistic at all.

So for them to be where they are now...regardless of the circumstances, is IMO a monumental drop. I was around for the Dukiet days, and the Deane days..and after TC took over the program, I never would have imagined dropping to those depths again, and what I mean by that is no national relevance, missing tournies altogether(even though NIT is irrelevant, it's still postseason). It wasn't that long ago, MU was amongst the top of the NCAA in consecutive NCAA appearances, they were making sweet 16's, Elite 8's, and were a well known(and respected) commodity in NCAA hoops.Now, no one nationally talks about Marquette. They are just another of the 350+ NCAA programs...and irrelevant to most people.

How can you not find that perplexing, embarrassing and downright sad??

The only thing I find perplexing, embarrassing and downright sad is for you....

[Mr. Nielsen]

Funny that this topic is brought up as I was thinking of how far Pitt has fallen. Remember they were one of the toughest home courts. Filled up their arena. Paid attendance in the loss to Montana was 3,102. they only sold 25% of the seats. This was a place that was always sold out. Last night in the win over UCSB, 2,685. Wow!

http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/Pitt/2017/08/10/pitt-basketball-attendance-petersen-events-center-crowd-size/stories/201708100119

[Mr. Sand-Knit]

You and everyone else guru.  However, whether it be al, oneil , or crean the last 3 rebuilds we have had did not happen over night.  Sure we would all like it to but it hasnt.  With that being said, i wasnt around for the al rebuild but its my belief that the recruiting under wojo has been excellent , much better than under crean. Creans rebuild fell flat after wade as he did not have enuff other talent and alot of bottom of the barrel recruits.  Oneils recruiting was very good.  I think wojos is even better . I think the team is going to be solid this year and his recruiting n transfers bode well for better years ahead.  Ive said it before .,, that his recruiting has been really good relative to a program that was down and a coach that had never done anything.  Another decent year or two and his message to recruits is more than just a vision and i think we will continue to recruit well and prolly even better

[rocket surgeon]

                                                  if only we had a football team hut hut hut

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

How can you not find that perplexing, embarrassing and downright sad??

Because every program in history goes through down periods. To think we would be immune from that is just not realistic. Certainly not happy with where we are and hope like hell it will improve. But as much as I care about Marquette basketball it doesn't have the ability to make feel embarrassed or sad...maybe perplexed I guess. But I don't find anything perplexing about having to rebuild after a coaching change.

I guess I am a bit perplexed why it seems like half the board has decided this season is going to be terrible because of one loss to at least a top 20 team.

[dgies9156]

I take a different tactic. We lost out from the BE restructuring because:

1) We lost the second biggest traditional rival we had, Notre Dame. They were good for a sell-out at least once every other year. It created emotion and excitement around our program in a way only Wisconsin does today. Not playing them takes an emotional and financial impact out of our schedule.

2) We lost Loserville from the schedule as well. Even when we were in different conferences, we played Loserville. These games were exciting and almost always sold out. We lost something special when they went elsewhere.

3) Syracuse was always good for a sell-out too.

These games were always big dollar games. We lost financially when we replaced these rivals

[Hards Alumni]

The biggest disappointment for me has been when they joined this new BE, I really and truly thought they'd run through it Memphis style every year. Not because the rest of the league was that bad, but because of where MU was as a program at that time vis a vis the others that joined(or were brought over). I just thought they'd be head and shoulders above everyone else, and like I said, given where MU was as a program at the time, those expectations were not unrealistic at all.

So for them to be where they are now...regardless of the circumstances, is IMO a monumental drop. I was around for the Dukiet days, and the Deane days..and after TC took over the program, I never would have imagined dropping to those depths again, and what I mean by that is no national relevance, missing tournies altogether(even though NIT is irrelevant, it's still postseason). It wasn't that long ago, MU was amongst the top of the NCAA in consecutive NCAA appearances, they were making sweet 16's, Elite 8's, and were a well known(and respected) commodity in NCAA hoops.Now, no one nationally talks about Marquette. They are just another of the 350+ NCAA programs...and irrelevant to most people.

How can you not find that perplexing, embarrassing and downright sad??

The US has changed so much since the 70s

[dgies9156]

The biggest disappointment for me has been when they joined this new BE, I really and truly thought they'd run through it Memphis style every year. Not because the rest of the league was that bad, but because of where MU was as a program at that time vis a vis the others that joined(or were brought over). I just thought they'd be head and shoulders above everyone else, and like I said, given where MU was as a program at the time, those expectations were not unrealistic at all.

So for them to be where they are now...regardless of the circumstances, is IMO a monumental drop. I was around for the Dukiet days, and the Deane days..and after TC took over the program, I never would have imagined dropping to those depths again, and what I mean by that is no national relevance, missing tournies altogether(even though NIT is irrelevant, it's still postseason). It wasn't that long ago, MU was amongst the top of the NCAA in consecutive NCAA appearances, they were making sweet 16's, Elite 8's, and were a well known(and respected) commodity in NCAA hoops.Now, no one nationally talks about Marquette. They are just another of the 350+ NCAA programs...and irrelevant to most people.

How can you not find that perplexing, embarrassing and downright sad??

You either had a naive view of the rest of the Big East or an over-inflated sense of who and what we were. 

Our problems and lack of progress related to two issues. The first was the coaching turn-over. We're on our third coach in about 12 years. Elite schools are those that maintain their coach for 20 years or more. Every time we change coaches, our recruits flee and we start from scratch. The Hillbilly was probably the worst, but Crean leaving didn't contribute to the stability and elitism of our program.

The second issue was the problems we had with our coach's handling of our players behaving in a manner that would get you off the Republican ticket in Alabama. We cracked down on some of the practices that our former Hillbilly coach was using to jump-start our program.  In that vein, Coach Wojo is developing our players from freshmen on, identifying our weaknesses and doing a commendable job of recruiting to solve talent problems on our team.

As to Al, he came to us for the 1964-1965 season. Entertaining though his first season might have been, our record was deplorable by latter-Al period standards. Our first breakthrough was in Year 3, when we made the NIT finals and in Year 5, when we were one made free throw away from the Final Four. It took Al some time from the day Brute Force signed with us until Dean the Dream et al. We did not make the Final Four until 1974.  The world was different then and Al, like John Wooden, Dean Smith and several other coaches, was not a bigot who refused to recruit African-American players. Our bee-line to the 'hood made an incredible difference.

We compete against many more teams today for talent and attention than we did between 1964 and 1977, when Al was here. Doesn't mean we can't be elite. Just means for us to matter, it's going be different.

Ultimately, we have to be in a conference. The Big East is good for us and we have some emerging rivals in Butler, Georgetown, Villanova and St. John's to go with traditional foes like Creighton and DePaul.

[Mr. Sand-Knit]

I take a different tactic. We lost out from the BE restructuring because:

1) We lost the second biggest traditional rival we had, Notre Dame. They were good for a sell-out at least once every other year. It created emotion and excitement around our program in a way only Wisconsin does today. Not playing them takes an emotional and financial impact out of our schedule.

2) We lost Loserville from the schedule as well. Even when we were in different conferences, we played Loserville. These games were exciting and almost always sold out. We lost something special when they went elsewhere.

3) Syracuse was always good for a sell-out too.

These games were always big dollar games. We lost financially when we replaced these rivals

Umm we played louisville because they were in our conference ,  or are you actually taking about 40-50 years ago.  And if so how is this germane to the conversation?

[slingkong]

Perhaps, but coincidental or not, one can argue that the conference has been a big benefit to everyone except MU, when you look at it from a perspective of where they were in the old big east as opposed to where they are now. No matter the circumstances, as an MU fan, and given where they were in the Old Big East, their slide into irrelevancy is quite frankly astonishing and embarrassing.

You deserve more! (Awww, are you coworkers still making fun of you?)

[Dr. Blackheart]

I started this post because of the Pitt dumpster fire article. The greedy jumpers have had firings, arrests and vacated wins.  Most of their basketball programs are a mess. In essence, they have become football schools to the detriment of their basketball programs.

The NBE has had relatively smooth sailing, winning a national championship on the clear. Georgetown was the one school griping but their excuse went away with the Nova win. They woke up and got rid of JT3.  Hell, even DePaul got a new arena.

As to MU, not to rehash, but when you impart extrajudicial academic standards higher than the NCAAs, don’t allow in a NCAA and originally MU cleared player, restrict JUCOs, suspend your coach for a tee shirt given to a recruit a week before he started school, one would expect a program drop in talent.  Buzz deserves a lot of blame but it is certainly shared.  But like the schools who left, that was not the MU way.

That said, the Board made the tough calls and MU is on its way back.  Buzz was a great coach but he also poured gas on the Marquette dumpster fire at the time, of which MUBB was just a part.

[BrewCity83]

As to MU, not to rehash, but when you impart extrajudicial academic standards higher than the NCAAs, don’t allow in a NCAA and originally MU cleared player, restrict JUCOs, suspend your coach for a tee shirt given to a recruit a week before he started school, one would expect a program drop in talent. 

I don't remember that--who was that player?

[Galway Eagle]

I don't remember that--who was that player?

I could be wrong but he may be talking about newbill?

[tower912]

The guy from Illinois who set the girl's hair on fire?

[dgies9156]

Umm we played louisville because they were in our conference ,  or are you actually taking about 40-50 years ago.  And if so how is this germane to the conversation?

Yo Sand Knit, I know that. I was following Marquette while you were still loading your diapers -- and probably before judging from the comment.

They were in the Big East, of course. But for a long-time, they weren't and we played them almost every year. The rivalry was so strong between two great teams that people filled our arena -- and their's as well. The rivalry preceded and then passed into the conference.

Now behave or you'll be sent to your room without supper.

[Galway Eagle]

The guy from Illinois who set the girl's hair on fire?

Malek Harris, still mad everybody made fun of me when I broke that news

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

Malek Harris, still mad everybody made fun of me when I broke that news

This made me realize that I hadn't heard anything about this guy in awhile. Apparently he plays for D2 Kentucky Wesleyan now. Averaged 10 points and 6 rebounds a game for them last season. Seems likely that he wouldn't have made much of an impact here.

[RJax55]

This made me realize that I hadn't heard anything about this guy in awhile. Apparently he plays for D2 Kentucky Wesleyan now. Averaged 10 points and 6 rebounds a game for them last season. Seems likely that he wouldn't have made much of an impact here.

After he was denied by MU, he signed with Kansas St. Played there for one season and was dismissed from the team by Bruce Weber.