Bilas Article on The Big East

[ozmetal71]

He gives a quick preview of the good and the bad for all the teams in the Big East.  Nice appetizer for the upcoming season.

For me, summer can't end quickly enough.  Between the Bears, ND football, and MU basketball coming up in fall, and the Sox sinking like the Titanic, I really wish it were November.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=2908992

[Big Papi]

Good read. 

Two great lines in that article. The first under Providence in bad news "it's easier to get to the Elite Eight than to win the Big East.".....

...and under good news for South Florida "It's almost always sunny in South Florida."

[Harrison]

Providence will be very good this year.  Heck, they were very good last year  but something went wrong for them, they had the suspension issues and I do not know if that hurt chemistry but that team fell off the ledge the last 6-7 games.
Very talented. 

[Gwaki]

You missed this:  About MU last year
...This team was an injury (to Jerel McNeal) away from the Sweet 16.

[MUEng92]

So McNeal would have been good for a win against MSU and UNC?  Wow, that is a pretty good compliment for Jerel.

[mu03eng]

Not nessacarily.  Bilas could also be implying that if Jerel wasn't injured we would have gone deeper in the BEast tourny, and gotten a better seed than an 8.  Even if we didn't go further in the BEast tourny the committee could have "de-seeded" us because of the loss of Jerel.  All of which means we never would have faced MSU and NC before the sweet 16

[Murffieus]

We lost 4 of our last 5 games before McNeal's injury-----to say that he would have made the difference in the NCAA is wishfull thinking----the team was out of gas as usual late in the season!

[muwarrior87]

mu03eng has got a point, take out arguably our most dynamic player right before the tourney and that affects our seeding. We probably would have been a 6 w/ him which would have been a much less bumpy road to the sweet 16...of course I'm not on the selection committee and could be wrong about this.

[Big Papi]

We lost 4 of our last 5 games before McNeal's injury-----to say that he would have made the difference in the NCAA is wishfull thinking----the team was out of gas as usual late in the season!

And won 8 straight before that.........to dismiss that as not relevant is wishful thinking..... losing one of your two best players at the end of the season does make a difference and a big difference at that.

[ChicosBailBonds]

We lost 4 of our last 5 games before McNeal's injury-----to say that he would have made the difference in the NCAA is wishfull thinking----the team was out of gas as usual late in the season!

Yeah...we lost on a miracle shot to NCAA Louisville.  Lost on the road to NCAA Notre Dame who went 18-0 at home.  Lost at Final Four team Georgetown.  Beat NCAA team Villanova.  Lost at NIT DePaul.

What a disgrace   

Out of gas?  No.  Playing very good teams...yes.  You forget that we won the previous 8 straight...it wasn't like we hit a wall right then.  We started playing the strongest part of our schedule with most of them on the road.  If not for a miracle shot we go 2-3 in that stretch against 4 NCAA teams and one NIT team.

[ozmetal71]

Plus, I don't recall us fading down the stretch in 2003.....making the Final Four was a nice way to end the year.

Also, didn't we win 4 out of our last 6 during the 2005-06 season?  I recall us beating Pitt and Georgetown, and then Providence to seal the NCAA bid that year.

We 'faded' in 2004-05 after Diener got hurt, and last year when we hit the tough part of our schedule.

More selective memory from Murf so he can bash the program and Crean.

[79Warrior]

We lost 4 of our last 5 games before McNeal's injury-----to say that he would have made the difference in the NCAA is wishfull thinking----the team was out of gas as usual late in the season!

Yeah...we lost on a miracle shot to NCAA Louisville.  Lost on the road to NCAA Notre Dame who went 18-0 at home.  Lost at Final Four team Georgetown.  Beat NCAA team Villanova.  Lost at NIT DePaul.

What a disgrace   

Out of gas?  No.  Playing very good teams...yes.  You forget that we won the previous 8 straight...it wasn't like we hit a wall right then.  We started playing the strongest part of our schedule with most of them on the road.  If not for a miracle shot we go 2-3 in that stretch against 4 NCAA teams and one NIT team.

Please do not confuse Murf with the truth. He likes to live in his own private world.

[tower912]

Or in Murf prose....Do not confuse Murf with the TRUTH!.    Love the exclamation points after every sentence.

[ecompt]

you have to remember, Murff was an integral part of the MU team that lost to St. Thomas (Minn.). He will take any opportunity to point out any negative he can find in MU.

[Murffieus]

fanatic, Chicos, ecompt et al----can you honestly say with a straight face that we are as good a team after the first loss in February as we are in December/January-----only on exception and that is when we had the super star in 2003------TC is a very intense person, but has to learn he's working with human beings----not machines!

Not made as a criticism----more as a recommendation!

[4everwarriors]

With or without Jerel this year's Warrior team didn't have enough to do some damage and keep playing in March. Shooting sucked all season, there was no inside presence, and their perimeter defense left alot to be desired. And, the guy who had the ball in his hands to start the offense disappeared dreaming about the Association. Crean will have to put together a more complete team in the future to advance in the Tournament.

[Big Papi]

Murf, I personally don't think TC over works the players and we fade down the stretch.  Thats foolish thinking as TC has stated that he in fact does ease up on the practices as the year wears on.  If you don't believe me, ask him.  I am sure he would be happy to talk to a former player.  

In hindsight, this past year's schedule was way more difficult at the end of the year than it was at any other portion of the schedule.  If we didn't give the game to Louisville, we end up with a more than respectable finish.  I won't rehash Chico's post but it is well written and to the point when it comes to this past year.

In 2005-2006, we won 4 out of our last five regular season games.  
2004-2005 was a disaster when Travis went down.
In 2003-2004 we also won 4 out of our last 5 regular season games.  
In 2002-2003 we won our last 5 regular season games.  
In 2001-2002 we lost our last 2 regular season games with one of them at CIncy by 1 but before that we had won 12 in a row.  

HARDLY FADES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Come on Murf, you are not an idiot.  

What TC has struggled to do is win end of year tourny games consistently.  His only conference wins came in 2001-2002 and last year.  Also, his NIT/NCAA record has not been great with 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 being the best.  That has nothing to do with fading as evidenced by our relatively strong finishes during the regular seasons over the years.  It does have to do with TC's struggles at the end of the year tournys and even there its not horrible. We would all like it to be better but its not horrible unless you dwell on the Michigan State fiasco and the year we lost Diener and didn't have a backup PG. (post season records: 2001-2002 (4-2) 2002-2003 (4-2) 2003-2004 (2-2) 2004-2005 (0-2) 2005-2006 (0-2) 2006-2007 (1-2))

[bilsu]

Crean has a 30-2 record in November games including 4 tournament titles. A truly amazing record. I have not calculated his March record, but it is not very good. Generally, in the conference tournaments and NCAA tournaments MU has been the higher seed when they lost. Certainly, Diener and McNeal getting hurt did not help, but there is something more than that. I think Crean goes conservative and this makes his players tight. They certainly did not start the games well against Alabama and Michigan St. The other factor is Crean uses a lot of one on one plays. In November teams are not as good defensively so Crean's style is more effective. Come March teams are much better defensively and also know each players tendencies. In March teams like West Virginia that move the ball quickly to shift defenses are more successful than teams that try to beat defenses off the dribble.

[ilovefreeway]

'99-'00 1 - 3 (we were a bad team)
'00-'01 1 - 2 (we were not a good team)
'01-'02 2 - 2 (starting to get the benefits of TC's players)
'02-'03 5 - 2 (what is there to say)
'03-'04 4 - 2 (not so bad, NIT run helped)
'04-'05 1 - 3 (TD injury)
'05-'06 1 - 3 (should have done better, only year I can really say that)
'06-'07 2 - 2 (JM injury)
          17-19

[Murffieus]

The swoon starts with the first loss in February----even if you use your March numbers, compare those against the w/l for the rest of the season.

You can't blame the 2003-04 swoon on the Diener injury----we were only 5-5 WITH him in CUSA that year just prior to the injury.

Also you can't blame the 2006-07 swoon on the McNeal injury either as we had lost 4 of 5 games immediately prior to the injury.

Why sweep this under a rug?----time for this (annual swoon) to be brought out into the open so something is done about it !

[Marquette84]

The swoon starts with the first loss in February----even if you use your March numbers, compare those against the w/l for the rest of the season.

Fine--I'll compare those numbers just as soon as you tell me how you'd like me to adjust for schedule strenght and home/away records.

Or are you seriously suggesting that there is no difference between a home game against Hillsdale and a road game against Georgetown.

[ozmetal71]

Yes, with Diener I am sure that we lose to Western Michigan at home and only score 40 points.


To omit Diener's injury as the main reason we played poorly in February and March in 04-05 is idiocy.  If I recall correctly, after he was hurt, we only beat Houston the rest of the way.  Hell we got killed by SLU at home as well. 

[Big Papi]

The swoon starts with the first loss in February----even if you use your March numbers, compare those against the w/l for the rest of the season.

You can't blame the 2003-04 swoon on the Diener injury----we were only 5-5 WITH him in CUSA that year just prior to the injury.

Also you can't blame the 2006-07 swoon on the McNeal injury either as we had lost 4 of 5 games immediately prior to the injury.

Why sweep this under a rug?----time for this (annual swoon) to be brought out into the open so something is done about it !

By your definition of a swoon, we might as well include Dixon, Donovan, Boeheim as coaches that also have annual swoons at the end of the year.  By the way here is TC's regular season records from Feb 1st:

06-07  4-4
05-06  5-3
04-05  4-5
03-04  4-5
02-03  9-1
01-02  6-2

Syracuse in 3 of the last 6 years had records of 4-5, 4-4 and 3-5.
Donovan had the best team this year by far and had all 3 of his SEC losses after Feb 1st, 6-3.  The year before they went 5-4 in the regular season after Feb 1st.
Dixon has Pitt at 5-3, 4-4 and 5-4 last 3 years.

[Murffieus]

SJS ---no one is saying there isn't a difference between Hillsdale & GT----but hre's the apples to apples story:

Beginning with the first loss in February over the previous 8 seasons MU is 34 wins vs 44 losses (collectively)---------now during those same 8 years and again collectively PRIOR to that first loss in February we are 50-20 in CONFERENCE games.

So there you have it SJS-----34-44 after the first loss in Feb. vs 50-20 in conference prior to that first loss in Feb. ----and you're trying to alibi that we don't have a swoon problem?

Clearly, clearly there is a reoccurring problem here!

[Pardner]

Great teams win at the end of the year like the F4 team.  TC is a system coach...he recruits for, trains, teaches, coaches and demands "balls out play".  His teams are ready from the "get go" of the season which is why they always roll out strong with a few speed bumps.   Like it or not, this is his approach (and I like it).  But I do agree his teams generally hit a wall the back half of conference play (except F4 season obviously).  But why?

Burn out?  Yes, but more because of injury of key players.  Lack of deep depth?  Yes, until MU can consistently attract Top 100 talent.   Young?  Yes, MU was one of the youngest teams in the BE and underclassmen may not be as used to the rigor of a long season.  Lack of talent?  A bit in key areas like the back line.  In my mind, though, it is more so about match-ups.  Other coaches adjust to our weaknesses the first time through the conference.   If our talent is one dimensional or we are missing a key player due to injury, competent coaches like TC, who make millions, look to blunt  strengths and take advantage of our weaknesses.  This is what March Madness is all about.

With our current team, we will be in every game...but we need to learn how to beat the match up zone as we will see it a lot.  MSU blunted DJ's initial penetration causing happy feet and in place dribbling.  UNC went over the zone as they had the backline talent.  With a system offense that sets-up because of our talent at the foul line extended, we better be a great perimeter shooting team in the half court offense (like the nice adjustment of moving Kinsella out to the 3 pt. line) AND to develop frontline play as the season progresses besides dishes for lay-ups off the guards' dribble drives...like the F4 year with the ability to post-up RJax.  But, we are what our talent dictates.