A lot of talk on the Big East under-performing

[JTBMU7]

Lot's of people saying how weak the BE is b/c only 2 teams made it and they beat BE teams to get there. Not sure if that's valid, b/c if all 4 of those teams were spread out there might be 4... anyway, i agree that the BE has been a dissapointment, but the only conference that's really doing well is the ACC with FSU joining UNC and Duke. other than that it's pretty much all over the map with VCU, Butler, SDSU, and Richmond.

No doubt the BEAST has dissappointed, but glad we're part of the good guys who lived up to the reputation!

GO MU!!

[HouWarrior]

Fans of MU and Uconn can enjoy just blowing this off. We cant worry about that now. The other BE boards can work on this point.

...And if they want to make it easier for them to bear, we should be getting tons of love/support from our BE fan brethren.

[El Duderino]

NCAA Tournament games can often be crapshoots, especially the close games and Big East teams lost all their close games. Thus, fans of non-Big East teams were a lock to mock the conference. I don't believe the conference was way overrated, there were just some close losses and Georgetown/Villanova both entered the tournament playing their worst ball of the year.

Oh well, i care mainly just about Marquette and we are in the Sweet 16, so i'm not going to be bothered in the slightest by others mocking the Big East. I don't look for validation from others and i'm sure Buzz/the players don't either.

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

Fans of MU and Uconn can enjoy just blowing this off. We cant worry about that now. The other BE boards can work on this point.

...And if they want to make it easier for them to bear, we should be getting tons of love/support from our BE fan brethren.

The teams that finished 10th & 11th are in the Sweet Sixteen.

[shiloh26]

The teams that finished 10th & 11th are in the Sweet Sixteen.

While I agree the Big East has really disappointed in the Tournament, this fact still makes it pretty clear how strong the BEast was all year. 

[willie warrior]

It is just BEast haters gloating. And before the Warriors joined, I was one.

Just tell those haters this:

The BEast Tourney's 9th and 11th seeds are still dancing---that shows how great the conference is---put that in your jockstrap and smoke it!!!!!

[CTWarrior]

I thought the Big East was a little over-rated going into the tournament, but I never expected them to be this bad.

Pitt is borderline retarded.  That last foul as dumb as I have ever seen.  I would like to point out that Butler is not very good.  They did not win the crappy Horizon League in the regular season, and they lost to UW-Milwaukee twice.  To say Pitt gagged that game is a gross understatement.  Don't forget, UNC-Asheville had Pitt in a game for 25 minutes, which is about 24 minutes longer than most 16 seeds manage.

Notre Dame was still in a losable game with 5 minutes to go against whatever piece of crap 15 seed they played in round 1 and then were never even in the game against 10 seed Florida State.  This while playing in Chicago, which may as well be a home game for them.

Louisville lost to Morehead State, another weak team that did not win their lousy conference regular season title.  Richmond killed Morehead State them by figuring out that Faried only cares about rebounds and won't actually guard anyone if it means he has to stray away from the basket and his precious rebounds to do it and so they put his man at the foul line and let him take uncontested foul line jumpers the whole game.  I'm surprised coaching genius Rick Pitino couldn't unravel that Rubik's Cube.

I know Saint John's lost DJ Kennedy, but they weren't competitive against Gonzaga, a team that wasn't competitive against BYU who was missing their second best player.

Georgetown has been dead since Wright got hurt, and didn't look any better when he came back, and was the second Big East 6 seed that wasn't even competitive in their loss to an 11 seed.

Villanova was the weirdest.  They went into a hold for the last shot, don't initiate offense and have a guy go 1 on 3 with 6 seconds left on the shot clock for the last 10 minutes of their game with George Mason (who promptly lost by about 8 million to Ohio State).  It was like Jay Wright or Corey Fisher bet on George Mason.

West Virginia actually did OK.  Had a bad start against Clemson, but then got going and took care of them relatively easily.  They also played a better Kentucky team very well and lost a game that could have gone either way.

The other weird thing is that the 4 Big East teams that looked the best in the round of 64 are the ones that played each other in the round of 32).  UConn crushed a not as bad as you think Bucknell team, and Cincinnati cruised past a solid Missouri team (most people would have said Missouri was the best 11 seed, but they're the only one that didn't win).  Marquette had a surprisingly easy time with Xavier and Syracuse took care of business against Indiana State.

[babytownfrolics]

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/big-easts-performance-is-upsetting-but-its-no-failure/?partner=rss&emc=rss