Big East Bashing

[Warrior Forever]

I am sick and tired of the collective bashing of the Big East.  However, let's get a few things on the table:

The Big East has had a bad performance thus far:

1) only two of 11 teams remain after the first weekend

2) the top four teams (Pitt, Notre Dame, Syracuse and Louisville) have been sent home . . . ouch

Having ceded the aforementioned points, I have some counter points to make.

1) It is asinine to rely on a team's one game performance to determine the validity of their season, and therefore, its inclusion in the tournament.     

2) If a late three doesn't fall (Louisville) or a brain camp (Pitt) doesn't ensue, as well as four Big East teams being forced to square off (MU-Syracuse, UConn-Cincy), we could have seen 4 or 5 teams in the Sweet 16.  People would then be raving about the strength of the BEast.

3) People who give college basketball a passing glance before March become experts when the tourney kicks off.  If you sample one game out of 30, do you think you may see some surprises?  Perhaps a UConn winning at Texas, St. John's pasting Duke, ND and Villanova beating Wisconsin and UCLA respectively on a neutral court?

4) Additionally, because a team/s from a conference, say the ACC, have a nice run, it doesn't mean that conference was overlooked.  It means three teams (two of which I think are Top 10 teams) played well enough to survive the weekend.

This tournament is the best sporting event of the year.  However, it is a snapshot in time, especially the first weekend.  A great, fantastic snapshot.
Take it for what it's worth and don't use it to negate a season's worth of accomplishment.

Go Warriors.

[GGGG]

The problem is that five BE teams lost to lower seeds: Georgetown, Louisville, St. Johns, Pitt, Notre Dame.  (Not including Syracuse since they lost to another BE team.)

Marquette has the only two wins the conference has against higher seeded teams.

The BE was almost by definition overrated this year.

[MUMac]

Hard to argue with the detractors when you consider 4 losses were to double digit seeds (UL - 13; Gtown - 11; SJU - 11; Pitt - 10) and an 8 seed.  Add to that, Gtown, ND and SJU lose in blow outs, and all are to the aforementioned double digit seeds.  We had a #1 seed (lost to an 8); #2 seed (blown out by a 10); and a 4 seed (beaten by a 13).  Tough to argue when there are 3 #1 seeds remaining (Pitt only one out); 3 #2 seeds remaining (ND only one out); we are 1-1 in the 3 seeds (with Cuse losing to us, admittedly); the 4 seed (Louisville) is the lowest seed to lose on day one.  We had 5 top 4 seeds - all but UCONN are out.  The only other top 4 seeds out are Texas (losing to a 5) and Purdue (blown out by the 11 seed that beat Georgetown).

I have a hard time arguing in favor of the BE.  The losses alone are tough, add in the blowouts and losing the only #1 and #2 seeds, it just looks bad from all angles.

[babytownfrolics]

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

This analysis puts the bashing in its proper perspective.

[brewcity77]

The notion that one weekend, four days of basketball, could undo the thumping the Big East laid down on the rest of the country over a 5-month span is simply ridiculous. The Big East didn't advance the way we may have hoped, but didn't Villanova still run up a 12-2 record against the rest of the country, losing to only Tennessee and GMU? Georgetown went 11-2, beating ODU, Missouri, Memphis, and Utah State along the way. Pitt went 13-2, their only non-con losses to Tennessee and Butler. Notre Dame went 12-2, with wins over Wisconsin, Gonzaga, and Georgia.

Bottom line, during the regular season the Big East went 159-41 against the other conferences. That while facing the second toughest non-conference schedule of any conference. The only tougher schedule was played by the SWAC, which is college basketball speak for "the teams all the high-majors schedule for automatic victories", especially when you look at the SWAC's 8-96 non-conference record this past season.

Here's a look at the winning percentages and schedule strengths of the BCS conferences:

ACC 0.7135% SOS-13
Big East 0.7950% SOS-2
Big 10 0.782% SOS-3
Big 12 0.8047% SOS-21
Pac-10 0.6694% SOS-4
SEC 0.6982% SOS-7

So looking at that, the ACC can be dismissed out of hand. A pathetic SOS coupled with a lesser winning percentage. The SEC and Pac-10 are also not worth looking at, significantly lower winning percentages coupled with weaker SOS numbers.

That leaves three conferences. The Big 12 may have a slightly higher winning percentage, but their SOS is 21 out of 31 conferences. Sorry, that doesn't cut it. ONLY the Big Ten is in the argument with the Big East. But they have a slightly lower winning percentage as well as a slightly easier SOS. They are close, but they aren't the Big East.

People seem to think that one weekend's sample somehow undoes an entire season worth of data. Yes, this was a disappointing weekend, but the Big East had a dominant season. Anyone who asserts otherwise simply doesn't realize that college basketball exists outside of a three-weekend window from mid-March to early April, and those people's opinions clearly aren't educated enough to be considered well-formed.

[redbirdwarrior]

Isn't it a credit to a conference to have its 11th best (record wise) team one of only 16 teams left in pursuit of the national championship?  Seems to show some strength in a conference...

[willie warrior]

Conference tourney 9th and 11th seeds still dancing shows the strength of that conference.

End of argument.

[SaintPaulWarrior]

I think the Big East deserved 11 teams in the tourney but I think a couple of teams....maybe more....were seeded too high.  GT SJU without two of their best players come to mind right away as being overseeded.

[brewcity77]

Isn't it a credit to a conference to have its 11th best (record wise) team one of only 16 teams left in pursuit of the national championship?  Seems to show some strength in a conference...

9th and 11th, in theory what should have been two of the last three teams in, though I think we all can tell UConn's 3-seed had them higher in the pecking order than that.

What I think most critics fail to realize is how bad the crop of teams were out there. Who deserved to be in more than the 11 Big East teams? Missouri State or Colorado? They didn't play anyone out of conference. Alabama or Virginia Tech? Shoddy RPIs, not enough quality wins (despite some signature wins) and simply not good enough resumes. Maybe St. Mary's? No quality wins. When you look at the teams left out, and then factor in that Marquette was at worst the 5th team out, there's no way anyone can justify putting anyone in ahead of them, since you'd have to kick four play-in teams out before you even get to the Warriors.

It's simply silly to pretend that these teams don't belong. One bad weekend does not five months undo.

[chren21]

I think the only way to get national respect is to beat NC now.  People will say we beat a BE team to get to the sweet 16.  I don't agree but based on what I am hearing I can see that that is the case

[Marquette84]

9th and 11th, in theory what should have been two of the last three teams in, though I think we all can tell UConn's 3-seed had them higher in the pecking order than that.

What I think most critics fail to realize is how bad the crop of teams were out there. Who deserved to be in more than the 11 Big East teams? Missouri State or Colorado? They didn't play anyone out of conference. Alabama or Virginia Tech? Shoddy RPIs, not enough quality wins (despite some signature wins) and simply not good enough resumes. Maybe St. Mary's? No quality wins. When you look at the teams left out, and then factor in that Marquette was at worst the 5th team out, there's no way anyone can justify putting anyone in ahead of them, since you'd have to kick four play-in teams out before you even get to the Warriors.

It's simply silly to pretend that these teams don't belong. One bad weekend does not five months undo.

Perhaps the only argument to the "Big East Deserves 11" is the argument I made before the selection that it was hard to make a proactive case to include Villanova based on their collapse over the last 15 games. The rules were changed to avoid highlighting the last 10 games, but that was done to prevent teams from being harmed by end-of-season marquee matchups (like the ACC's traditional UNC vs Duke on the last day of the season)--not hide a valid "body of work" issue like Villanova's complete and utter collapse.

That having been said, perhaps the problem is that the Big East had been described as "tough" when it may have been more accurate to say that the league was "deep". 

I think its fair to say that we had a ton of above average teams, but no truly great ones. 

[brewcity77]

I think its fair to say that we had a ton of above average teams, but no truly great ones.

I'd agree with that. Pitt and Notre Dame were both consistently good, but never really looked like title-contenders. Syracuse, Louisville, and West Virginia were all good, but certainly didn't look like the world-beaters they have seemed in some recent years. Georgetown and Villanova were clearly on a downward spiral. And while Cincy and St. John's certainly had some good spells, neither seemed to be quite at that level yet (especially SJU after the Kennedy injury).

Which leaves just two teams. Starting with us, we never really looked like a title contender, and still don't. But we were the kind of team that could consistently play with anyone in the country on any given night. We just happened to get two great performances in clutch moments, which led us to where we are now. And I said many times earlier this year that I could just as easily see us in an Elite 8 as I could going out in the first round. I stand by that. With a week to prepare, this team could definitely knock off UNC.

And then there's UConn. I've thought all year long that UConn was the most dangerous team in the Big East. They are beatable, but when Kemba Walker's on, with a tremendously underrated supporting cast, at least on a national level that doesn't recognize how good guys like Oriakhi, Lamb, and Coombs-McDaniel are, they are capable of beating anyone in the country. They won in Maui. They won the Big East tournament. And honestly, is there any reason they couldn't win the whole darn thing? Yes, they only went 9-9 in the Big East, but anyone who doesn't think they can challenge for the title hasn't been watching.

[MUBurrow]

Big East teams record in this tournament against other major conferences is by my count, 2-2. I think that the Big East bashing is stupid, because they are a let down ... in comparison to whom?  Would you now step up and say the B10 is better than the BEast? They are 2-4 against major conferences.  The ACC is 4-1.  The SEC is 2-2.
I guess my point is that no one stands up in January and says "Holy hell! The Patriot league is great!"  If you want to extrapolate conference strength from tournament results (which given the small sample sizes above is pointless anyway, but alas) you need to compare the "overrated" conference against the other big power conferences you want to allege should take its place. Comparing them to non major conferences generally doesn't do that, because are you going to count wins against UTSA equal to a win over Xavier? A Wofford win to a Butler win?  Its just such a stupid exercise.
Conference strength is as relative an argument you can make. The BEast is only great if you see it as better than the others, and vice versa.  99.999% of the arguments alleging the BEast is overrated arent making those comparisons, just trying to count a game against Butler and VCU as equal to other mid majors that have been knocked out (the best of which have been knocked out by other non major teams - eg Old Dominion v Butler, Temple v. San Diego St, Gonzaga v. BYU)

[KenoshaWarrior]

Who cares!!!
Marquette is in the Regionals baby!!