MORGANTOWN - Before we begin crawling to the defense of the Big East - we won't rush there but yes, we will crawl - let's get the bad news out of the way and be brutally fair and honest in doing so.
I actually brought this up a couple of weeks ago on the eve of the Big East tournament when it was pointed out that someone had suggested that the Big East was vastly overrated because it had not produced a national champion since Connecticut and Syracuse won back-to-back titles in 2003 and 2004. Now, if you're judging which conference has the best team each year, that's obviously true.
Few, though, have ever maintained that the Big East had the best team or teams every year. The point that is lost on those who would argue that the league is overrated is that the argument is not who has the best team - the tournament decides that - but which is the most difficult to play in.
The Big East still wins that one without qualification or argument, and even this year's NCAA tournament results serve to prove the point.
The Big East had seven teams that were good enough to make the NCAA tournament and win at least one game. The Big Ten had five, the ACC, Big 12 and Pac 10 three.
The two teams that made it to the Sweet 16 finished tied for ninth in the Big East. They lost as many league games as they won (both were 9-9) and didn't even get byes in the conference tournament.
Marquette was the 11th seed in the Big East tournament and an 11th seed in the NCAA tournament. Most leagues in the country don't even have 11 teams and in the Big East No. 11 is good enough to beat a sixth seed in the NCAA tournament.
St. John's was one-and-done in the NCAA tournament, but beat two of the NCAA's four No. 1 seeds (Duke and Pitt) during the season, as well as a No. 2 (Notre Dame) and a No. 3 (Connecticut). The Red Storm finished as the fifth seed in the Big East.
You want comparisons to other top-flight teams? Big East teams played seven games this season against non-conference teams that were ranked in the Top 10 at the time the game was played. The league was 6-1 in those games. Big East teams played non-conference games against teams from 29 other leagues in the regular season, had a winning record against 27 of them (including every power conference) and was .500 against the other two.
The point is not that the Big East has the best teams in the country this year or any year, but that it has more of the best teams, and that navigating the season is a bear.
Even a lousy - relatively lousy, that is - performance in the NCAA tournament, in which seven league teams win games and two teams from the lower half of the standings make the Sweet 16, manages to illustrate that point.
Reach Dave Hickman at 304-348-1734 or dphickm...@aol.com.
MORGANTOWN - Before we begin crawling to the defense of the Big East - we won't rush there but yes, we will crawl - let's get the bad news out of the way and be brutally fair and honest in doing so.
The NCAA tournament has not been kind to the league. And yes, the league has been a disappointment to the NCAA tournament, which lavished it with 11 bids.
Of those 11 teams, only two remain after just the first weekend of play. And in order to get past the first weekend, the two that did - Connecticut and Marquette - won half their first-week games against other Big East teams.
In other words, by Sunday's Round of 32, the worst the Big East could do was send two teams to the Sweet 16. Wouldn't you know the league would oblige and accomplish the worst possible?
You want stats? We'll give you stats.
The Big East stands at 9-9 in tournament play so far. There were 10 leagues that sent multiple teams to the tournament. Of those other nine, seven have a winning record, one (the Big 12 at 4-4) is tied with the Big East with a .500 winning percentage and the only league that was worse was Conference USA, losing a play-in game and then a Round of 64 game to go 0-2 and exit the event all together.
As long as we're piling on, let's break down the Big East's 9-9 mark. In the Thursday-Friday games, the league was a fairly respectable 7-4. But look closer. Of those seven wins, only two came against teams from other power conferences. And in those two, West Virginia beat a Clemson team that had to win a play-in game just to get into the bracket and Cincinnati beat the last Big 12 team that made the field, Missouri.
Want more bad news? Of those 11 Thursday-Friday games, the Big East team was seeded higher in all but two, sometimes ridiculously higher, like No. 1 Pitt against No. 16 UNC-Asheville. In nine of the 11 games a Big East team was playing an opponent seeded 11th or worse, yet lost three of those games. The only Big East win that didn't seem almost preordained was 11th-seeded Cincinnati beating No. 6 seed Xavier. Villanova was the only Big East team playing as a lower seed and the Wildcats lost, along with a fourth seed (Louisville) and two sixes (Georgetown and St. John's).
Oh, and six of the initial 11 games were played against teams from one-bid leagues. The mighty Big East was just 4-2 in those games. Throw in the Round of 32 games on Saturday and Sunday - minus the two Big East vs. Big East games - and the league was 4-3 against teams from one-bid leagues, an awful 6-5 against lower-seeded teams and 1-2 against higher-seeded teams.
Comparisons? The ACC stands at 7-1 and the only loss was by Clemson, while playing its second game in 36 hours, to West Virginia. The Mountain West, with BYU and San Diego State, is 4-1. The Colonial Athletic Association is 4-2 and has a team (Virginia Commonwealth) that became the first to ever win three games to get to a Sweet 16. And the Big Ten (7-5), SEC (4-3), Pac 10 (4-3) and the Atlantic 10 (3-2) all have won more games than they've lost. But not the Big East.
So, what's the good news here? Well, there is none. The fact that the Big East was given 11 spots in the tournament and needed two insular brackets in order to advance anyone into the Sweet 16 is going to be fuel for critics for years. That Connecticut beat Cincinnati and Marquette beat Syracuse to reach the next stage can be looked upon pretty much as a matter of advancement by default. It borders on putting eight league teams in the same bracket and then being proud that two advanced.
There is, however, a dose of reality that needs to be injected here, and that's where we rise to the defense of the Big East as still the biggest, baddest, toughest conference in the history of college basketball. It's all a matter of perspective and what one considers the litmus test for that characterization.
I actually brought this up a couple of weeks ago on the eve of the Big East tournament when it was pointed out that someone had suggested that the Big East was vastly overrated because it had not produced a national champion since Connecticut and Syracuse won back-to-back titles in 2003 and 2004. Now, if you're judging which conference has the best team each year, that's obviously true.
Few, though, have ever maintained that the Big East had the best team or teams every year. The point that is lost on those who would argue that the league is overrated is that the argument is not who has the best team - the tournament decides that - but which is the most difficult to play in.
The Big East still wins that one without qualification or argument, and even this year's NCAA tournament results serve to prove the point.
The Big East had seven teams that were good enough to make the NCAA tournament and win at least one game. The Big Ten had five, the ACC, Big 12 and Pac 10 three.
The two teams that made it to the Sweet 16 finished tied for ninth in the Big East. They lost as many league games as they won (both were 9-9) and didn't even get byes in the conference tournament.
Marquette was the 11th seed in the Big East tournament and an 11th seed in the NCAA tournament. Most leagues in the country don't even have 11 teams and in the Big East No. 11 is good enough to beat a sixth seed in the NCAA tournament.
St. John's was one-and-done in the NCAA tournament, but beat two of the NCAA's four No. 1 seeds (Duke and Pitt) during the season, as well as a No. 2 (Notre Dame) and a No. 3 (Connecticut). The Red Storm finished as the fifth seed in the Big East.
You want comparisons to other top-flight teams? Big East teams played seven games this season against non-conference teams that were ranked in the Top 10 at the time the game was played. The league was 6-1 in those games. Big East teams played non-conference games against teams from 29 other leagues in the regular season, had a winning record against 27 of them (including every power conference) and was .500 against the other two.
The point is not that the Big East has the best teams in the country this year or any year, but that it has more of the best teams, and that navigating the season is a bear.
Even a lousy - relatively lousy, that is - performance in the NCAA tournament, in which seven league teams win games and two teams from the lower half of the standings make the Sweet 16, manages to illustrate that point.
Reach Dave Hickman at 304-348-1734 or dphickm...@aol.com.
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