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Jackson1011 Offline
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College Basketball Notebook: Bigger and better?
Big East could become too good for its own good with expansion
Wednesday, January 19, 2005

By Paul Zeise, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Big East will grow into a 16-team mega-conference next season when Louisville, Cincinnati, Marquette, DePaul and South Florida join and Boston College heads for the ACC.

That has many people already calling the Big East the best conference in basketball history. There are predictions of record-setting numbers of NCAA tournament berths (could we see 10 teams make it?) and multiple national championships.

That might be true, but then again, it might not.

If, for instance, those teams had joined this season, the Big East (six -- four currently ranked minus Boston College plus three newcomers), not the ACC (five --four currently ranked plus Boston College), would have the most teams in the most recent Associated Press poll.

And what's most impressive is half of the Big East's ranked teams would be among the five coming in -- No. 14 Louisville, No. 16 Cincinnati and No. 25 Marquette -- and the other two newcomers have winning records.

That shows the Big East is adding quality and not just quantity. That is not a shock with Louisville and Cincinnati, which are perennial top 25 programs, and Pitt fans have seen how good Marquette is.

The two surprises, however, are South Florida (8-6) and DePaul (10-4). DePaul, which has tradition, had been in a bit of a tailspin in recent years and there was some thought that perhaps the program had seen its best days.

But last season the Blue Demons returned to the NCAA tournament for the first time in four years and won their first tournament game since 1989. They could be heading back to the tournament this season.

DePaul's resurgence means the Big East might be adding four NCAA tournament teams to a conference that might have as many as six now. With Boston College gone, the Big East could begin next season with nine tournament teams, probably at least three more than any other league.

That suggests the league will be a powerhouse for years to come.

But here is the catch -- the addition of so much strength could have the opposite effect on the Big East. It could become very difficult to get victories. Parity could rule the conference and eventually turn into mediocrity.

If teams beat up on each other constantly, it might become tough to justify more than four or five NCAA berths and thus the idea of a 16-team league will become a whole lot less appealing.
01-19-2005 08:38 PM
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While I don't like having 16 teams and am looking forward to the day the conference split what they fail to realize when they say the Big East would beat up on itself is that it would be hard to do so. Every team would only play each other once and then the Big East Tournament, so how could the conference beat up on each other?
01-19-2005 09:41 PM
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TexanMark Online
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This is the worse case scenario:
Assuming a sixteen game schedule it will be 10 single games against a league opponent and 3 Home n Homes. TV rules so the elite teams (Syr, UConn, UL, Cinci, Pitt, ND,Marquette) will play the toughest schedules. This will hurt their rankings due to more losses--and if they pad the nonconference schedule with too many creampuffs their RPI will plumment.

The other conferences will scream that they aren't getting their fair share of teams. They'll say how does Marquette at 17-12 (7-9 inconference, maybe a first round BE Tournament exit) deserves a bid. We have a 19-10 Big 10 State U that is so more deserving. The Big East will not get more than 7 bids because of politics so a team like Marquette will lose out. This will slowly erode the BE back towards the middle of the bell curve.

If we can get 8-10 bids every year things will be okay--the law of averages take over and the BE should be well represented for units earned and F4 appearances. The jury is still out in my book--but I tend to think we'll continue to stay in the top 2-3 conferences every year
01-20-2005 01:46 PM
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Jackson1011 Wrote:College Basketball Notebook: Bigger and better?
Big East could become too good for its own good with expansion
Wednesday, January 19, 2005

By Paul Zeise, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Big East will grow into a 16-team mega-conference next season when Louisville, Cincinnati, Marquette, DePaul and South Florida join and Boston College heads for the ACC.

That has many people already calling the Big East the best conference in basketball history. There are predictions of record-setting numbers of NCAA tournament berths (could we see 10 teams make it?) and multiple national championships.

That might be true, but then again, it might not.

If, for instance, those teams had joined this season, the Big East (six -- four currently ranked minus Boston College plus three newcomers), not the ACC (five --four currently ranked plus Boston College), would have the most teams in the most recent Associated Press poll.

And what's most impressive is half of the Big East's ranked teams would be among the five coming in -- No. 14 Louisville, No. 16 Cincinnati and No. 25 Marquette -- and the other two newcomers have winning records.

That shows the Big East is adding quality and not just quantity. That is not a shock with Louisville and Cincinnati, which are perennial top 25 programs, and Pitt fans have seen how good Marquette is.

The two surprises, however, are South Florida (8-6) and DePaul (10-4). DePaul, which has tradition, had been in a bit of a tailspin in recent years and there was some thought that perhaps the program had seen its best days.

But last season the Blue Demons returned to the NCAA tournament for the first time in four years and won their first tournament game since 1989. They could be heading back to the tournament this season.

DePaul's resurgence means the Big East might be adding four NCAA tournament teams to a conference that might have as many as six now. With Boston College gone, the Big East could begin next season with nine tournament teams, probably at least three more than any other league.

That suggests the league will be a powerhouse for years to come.

But here is the catch -- the addition of so much strength could have the opposite effect on the Big East. It could become very difficult to get victories. Parity could rule the conference and eventually turn into mediocrity.

If teams beat up on each other constantly, it might become tough to justify more than four or five NCAA berths and thus the idea of a 16-team league will become a whole lot less appealing.
The hand wringing over anything Big East cracks me up. I love how the ACC can have 4 teams in the top 10 but its not too good for its own good. This is bull****.
01-20-2005 03:55 PM
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L-Yes, haven't you figured it out yet? The ACC is special!
01-20-2005 03:58 PM
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