I hope ESPN is happy with what they did to hoops

[HuskyHawk]

If you're suggesting that the C-7 is worse than those conferences, you're crazy.

The Mountain West, A-12 (at least next year with Louisville included), and C-7 will all be pretty darn good basketball conferences, probably better than the SEC and Pac-12 most years.

Yes. This is all I am saying, although I think once the C7 adds all five teams, they are pretty well ahead of the A12 minus Louisville and MWC.

 

[upstater]

San Diego State nearly beat us in 2011, and BYU went to the S16
In 2012, New Mexico nearly beat Louisville, who went on to the Final Four.

True that other teams from the league flamed out, but they've been much better recently.

That was SDSt.'s best team since I've been alive. BYU is definitely the outlier.

I am not such a big believer in New mexico. I think they are rather ploddy, and should be taken out quickly in the NCAA's. That's one of the teams UConn should have beaten this year. They are like a Cincy in my eyes.

 

[upstater]

Just like Villanova this year. Yes. That is what I expect. 2-3 locks a year and another 2-3 bubble teams, with 4-6 total bids. Which would make them a pretty solid conference. Behind the ACC and B1G by miles...but after them? Are they really behind the Pac and Big XII by much if any?

It's going to be interesting with the newly strengthened ACC. How many bids will they get? Will WF, NCST and GT awaken from their slumber or be pounded by our ex conference foes?

We'll have to place a big bet on this but I see them at 3 bids max for 10 teams and never ever more than 4 for 12.

I see them as getting 3 for 10 and 4 for 12.

 

[tzznandrew]

We'll have to place a big bet on this but I see them at 3 bids max for 10 teams and never ever more than 4 for 12.

I see them as getting 3 for 10 and 4 for 12.

I think they're between 3-6 most years, usually on the lower end.

 

[huskymedic]

I'm suggesting that the dredges of the old Big East (PC, SJU, Depaul, and SHU) is just that and should not think of themselves as pulling a coup by leaving the football faction behind. These teams had a hard time making the Big East Tourney, let alone the Big Dance. Its like a parasite that detaches itself from its host before realizing right quick it better find a new one before it dies.

ChiTribHamilton Mar 13, 5:03pm via TweetDeck
Seton Hall coach Kevin Willard on new Big East: "It's going to be a basketball league – not a football league trying to play basketball."

 

[upstater]

I think they're between 3-6 most years, usually on the lower end.

That's above the level of the ACC. I don't see how they could outperform the ACC. And really, the SEC and Pac-12 are not going to be giving up bids to this conference either. They won't allow it.

 

[upstater]

ChiTribHamilton Mar 13, 5:03pm via TweetDeck
Seton Hall coach Kevin Willard on new Big East: "It's going to be a basketball league – not a football league trying to play basketball."

If the football teams were "trying" to play basketball, WTF were you doing?

 

[tzznandrew]

That's above the level of the ACC. I don't see how they could outperform the ACC. And really, the SEC and Pac-12 are not going to be giving up bids to this conference either. They won't allow it.

The ACC is about to have an infusion of talent. The ACC hasn't been very good recently outside of Duke and UNC. Once you add Syracuse, Louisville, and Notre Dame (I'm less bullish on Pitt), I think you'll see them getting more schools in consistently.

There was a time that the ACC was the basketball conference, but Maryland, Wake, NCState all dropped off a cliff. NCState is getting back, but Maryland is leaving, and I have my doubts about Wake.

Also, about the other leagues not allowing it. MWC has been getting more bids than the Pac and SEC for a while. They just haven't been good, and in college basketball, that still matters. There have been years recently where the ACC only got 3 bids. MWC and A10 have had more than that some years.

 

[Durks07]

If the football teams were "trying" to play basketball, WTF were you doing?

Being happy to cash paychecks for existing...thats really about it.

 

[upstater]

The ACC is about to have an infusion of talent. The ACC hasn't been very good recently outside of Duke and UNC. Once you add Syracuse, Louisville, and Notre Dame (I'm less bullish on Pitt), I think you'll see them getting more schools in consistently.

There was a time that the ACC was the basketball conference, but Maryland, Wake, NCState all dropped off a cliff. NCState is getting back, but Maryland is leaving, and I have my doubts about Wake.

Also, about the other leagues not allowing it. MWC has been getting more bids than the Pac and SEC for a while. They just haven't been good, and in college basketball, that still matters. There have been years recently where the ACC only got 3 bids. MWC and A10 have had more than that some years.

All I'm saying that the ACC went multiple years with 3 or 4 or 5 out of 12. The more bids they get now are going to come at the expense of the A12 and Catholics.

 

[Husky25]

ChiTribHamilton Mar 13, 5:03pm via TweetDeck
Seton Hall coach Kevin Willard on new Big East: "It's going to be a basketball league – not a football league trying to play basketball."

Is that what he was trying to do? Play basketball? Because the only similarity between SHU now and the Eddie Griffin days is that the court is 94' x 50', the lane is 15' long, and the hoops are 10' off the court. They can't even get into MSG in March without a ticket for admission. You know what's missing from that tweet? The phrase 'competitive with other teams.' Another question...What does every basketball only confernece have in common? They are Mid Majors at best. Except for GTown, the football teams in the old Big East WERE the Big East in basketball.

 

[tzznandrew]

All I'm saying that the ACC went multiple years with 3 or 4 or 5 out of 12. The more bids they get now are going to come at the expense of the A12 and Catholics.

I think the C7 are going to get 3 or 4 or 5 most years. I think, like the MWC in it's best years, the C7 will likely place their top 3 in the tournament every year, and a number of years it will be top 4-5. I think it is folly to suggest that because St. Louis is good in the A10 for a year or two, or Creighton, that it will transfer directly to a better conference (as you've said as well). But I do think some of those programs are good, and will ultimately still perform well enough out of conference to mitigate their losses.

 

[freescooter]

Just like Villanova this year. Yes. That is what I expect. 2-3 locks a year and another 2-3 bubble teams, with 4-6 total bids. Which would make them a pretty solid conference. Behind the ACC and B1G by miles...but after them? Are they really behind the Pac and Big XII by much if any?

It's going to be interesting with the newly strengthened ACC. How many bids will they get? Will WF, NCST and GT awaken from their slumber or be pounded by our ex conference foes?

There are really multiple ways of looking at the "strength" of leagues. One way is the number of bids, and that generally measures depth of quality teams, thoough one could argue it does so in a somewhat gross manner. So a league with 4 bids is stronger than one with 3 and weaker than 1 with 6. Assuming membership is relatively close, that gives some idea of how good a conference is overall. But looking at how the various teams actually perform in the post season is another way to value conference strength. Does a league regularly send teams deep into the tourney? Or produce Final Four teams, and national Championship game participants. So if you look at 2004 for example, the Big East, SEC, ACC and CUSA all got 6 bids. So looking at bids, you have 4 equal leagues. But if you dig a bit deeper, you find that the CUSA entrants wsere all gone by the Sweet 16. In fact only 1 of 6 got that far, while the ACC had 2 Final four teams, while the Big East and the SEC each had 1. UConn from the Big East beat Georgia Tech of the ACC in the Championship game. What does that say about the relative strengths of the ACC, BE and SEC? Probably one could make a case that overall, at least in 2004 the ACC was the better league, but the Big East had the best team. If you look at the results by round: 32-ACC: 6 BE:5, S16-ACC:3 BE:3, E8-ACC:3, BE:1, FF-ACC:2 BE:1 CG-ACC:1 BE:1, Title:BE. You could probably make an argument on either side. The Big East had the best team, but the ACC had more teams make deeper runs. Both had dreck at the bottom though neither had the level of dreck they have today. I think we'll see something similar between the Catholic Big East and the A12. They'll get a similar number of bids, you'd have to guess in a typical year, UConn, Cincy, Temple and Memphis would be likely as would Georgetown, Marquette, Butler and maybe Villanova. the issue will be whether either one produces teams that are capable of going deep, challenging for a national championship. I have my doubts that the C-7 will do that. I have some doubts about the A-12 too, just not as many.

 

[SubbaBub]

The new ACC will be a 8-9 bid league instead of a 3-4 bid league they had become. The A12 will be a 3-4 bid league as will the C-7. Only difference is that the A12 will have the same 3-4 every year and the C-7 will have Gtown and a rotating parade of crumbums.

St Johns will be the big winner out of all this as they will be able to keep 1 or 2 NYC guys closer to home without all the former BE powers around. Might be enough to make the NCAA semi-regularly. SH and PC are still screwed.

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk 2

 

[CTFAN4LIFE]

Big 12 tournament game looked like a funeral. The stands for any ACC game not involving Duke or UNC are going to be pretty empty. Even the second night of the BET, with scrub schools playing, there is more juice than you will see in any Big 12 tournament game not involving Kansas.

ESPN still has the Pac 12 final, which is broadcast at a very mid-majorish 11 pm EDT. How did they convince the Big West to move their final? ESPN is basically saying that half the content of a league they just paid a fortune for is worthless.

Fox got the prize of college basketball for a song when it signed the Big East. ESPN really screwed the pooch on this one, and say what you will about football driving the bus, ESPN depends on CBB for a lot of programming between late November and mid-March. How many ACC games can they broadcast next year? No one cares about SEC basketball outside of Kentucky, Florida, Vanderbilt, Tennessee and Missouri. Mid season rivalry games draw 5k at a lot of SEC schools.

On the flip side, I suspect that with all the content ESPN has lost, the top America 12 matchups will get prime time broadcasts, because ESPN has almost nothing else to show.

I think ESPN has helped to "kill" hoops in a more profound/different way - not via CR but rather through over-saturation of the product. I think most fans - even in "basketball-crazed" areas - are tiring of it via elongated seasons that now have pre-season tourneys (yawners for the most part) and more and more and more and more games on tv. By the time folks get to March, it is kind of white noise and unless your team makes a deep run into the tourney or your bracket pool is winnable people are paying less attention to hoops at that time of year as well. Football (with its fewer game schedules) is replacing other sports that have many more games per season (i.e. basketball, baseball, and hockey) as the sport to watch (and I think there are societal reasons for this as well). Things might cycle back to basketball being more popular than it is now but I think that will be a long time coming.

 

[upstater]

There are really multiple ways of looking at the "strength" of leagues. One way is the number of bids, and that generally measures depth of quality teams, thoough one could argue it does so in a somewhat gross manner. So a league with 4 bids is stronger than one with 3 and weaker than 1 with 6. Assuming membership is relatively close, that gives some idea of how good a conference is overall. But looking at how the various teams actually perform in the post season is another way to value conference strength. Does a league regularly send teams deep into the tourney? Or produce Final Four teams, and national Championship game participants. So if you look at 2004 for example, the Big East, SEC, ACC and CUSA all got 6 bids. So looking at bids, you have 4 equal leagues. But if you dig a bit deeper, you find that the CUSA entrants wsere all gone by the Sweet 16. In fact only 1 of 6 got that far, while the ACC had 2 Final four teams, while the Big East and the SEC each had 1. UConn from the Big East beat Georgia Tech of the ACC in the Championship game. What does that say about the relative strengths of the ACC, BE and SEC? Probably one could make a case that overall, at least in 2004 the ACC was the better league, but the Big East had the best team. If you look at the results by round: 32-ACC: 6 BE:5, S16-ACC:3 BE:3, E8-ACC:3, BE:1, FF-ACC:2 BE:1 CG-ACC:1 BE:1, Title:BE. You could probably make an argument on either side. The Big East had the best team, but the ACC had more teams make deeper runs. Both had dreck at the bottom though neither had the level of dreck they have today. I think we'll see something similar between the Catholic Big East and the A12. They'll get a similar number of bids, you'd have to guess in a typical year, UConn, Cincy, Temple and Memphis would be likely as would Georgetown, Marquette, Butler and maybe Villanova. the issue will be whether either one produces teams that are capable of going deep, challenging for a national championship. I have my doubts that the C-7 will do that. I have some doubts about the A-12 too, just not as many.

of course, there's also one other factor. Seeding. It does make a difference.

 

[upstater]

I think ESPN has helped to "kill" hoops in a more profound/different way - not via CR but rather through over-saturation of the product. I think most fans - even in "basketball-crazed" areas - are tiring of it via elongated seasons that now have pre-season tourneys (yawners for the most part) and more and more and more and more games on tv. By the time folks get to March, it is kind of white noise and unless your team makes a deep run into the tourney or your bracket pool is winnable people are paying less attention to hoops. Football (with its fewer game schedules) is replacing other sports with many more games per season (i.e. basketball, baseball, and hockey) as the sport to watch (and I think there are societal reasons for this as well). Things might cycle back to basketball being more popular than it is now but I think that will be a long time coming.

I tend to disagree with this. It's essentially a 4 1/2 month season. 35 games. It's not really all that taxing.

 

[CTFAN4LIFE]

I tend to disagree with this. It's essentially a 4 1/2 month season. 35 games. It's not really all that taxing.

Just to my point: with 35 games, none of them are all that important in the regular season (unless you are on the bubble) and with 300+ schools playing and all of these games that are on tv it is so watered-down. Lose 1 football game and you have little to no chance at a Championship, lose two and you dont play in your Conf Championship game, lose three and you are in a largely-forgotten bowl game. Each football game is precious - the same cannot be said about basketball.

 

[upstater]

Just to my point: with 35 games, none of them are all that important in the regular season (unless you are on the bubble) and with 300+ schools playing and all of these games that are on tv it is so watered-down. Lose 1 football game and you have little to no chance at a Championship, lose two and you dont play in your Conf Championship game, lose three and you are in a largely-forgotten bowl game. Each football game is precious - the same cannot be said about basketball.

I think the OOC games establish a resume, but if you go under .500 in a tough conference, you are essentially excluded from the dance. I do believe they count. It's not the end of the world, but they do count. We're talking 16 games. It's not like the NBA.

 

[upstater]

I think the C7 are going to get 3 or 4 or 5 most years. I think, like the MWC in it's best years, the C7 will likely place their top 3 in the tournament every year, and a number of years it will be top 4-5. I think it is folly to suggest that because St. Louis is good in the A10 for a year or two, or Creighton, that it will transfer directly to a better conference (as you've said as well). But I do think some of those programs are good, and will ultimately still perform well enough out of conference to mitigate their losses.

While I think the C7 will have a better conference top to bottom than the A12, I bet they get an equal amount of bids for precisely the same reasons that CUSA and MWC have been getting more than the ACC and Pac12, Sec in recent years. RPI. It's a flawed measurement as we all know, and the top of the conference will be virtually assured each year of having stellar record, at the expense of a weak bottom. Memphis, UConn, Cincy and even Temple will have to try quite hard to miss the NCAA's.

 

[Marty Jackson]

To be clear, the magic of MSG, especially the last 7 years, will NEVER be duplicated. There is no way to replicate 16 teams descending on Manhattan, many of whom have large traveling fan bases or big alumni bases in NYC. Every year was electric. Including the years UConn was not very good, I can't think of a single year that the BET was not great.

Georgetown, Villanova, Marquette, UConn, Pitt, Syracuse, Louisville, WVU, Cincinnati, Notre Dame, plus the host St. Johns all on ONE COURT!!! And the teams all brought their A game for the tournament. 7 of the 11 games in the 2006 BET were decided by 5 or fewer points. There is no way to ever match what happened on MSG in the NBE. They will be talking about this dead league 20 years from now.

Putting the ACC Tournament in MSG, even with UConn, would not come close to matching the BET. Syracuse and UConn can not carry MSG by themselves. The C7 have a slightly better chance, although I do not disagree with those that say that adding a bunch of midwestern schools is not going to sell many more tickets to the C7 BET. Xavier travels pretty well, and I suspect that Creighton will since they draw so well in Omaha already for mediocre MVC opponents, but Dayton, St. Louis and Butler will probably not bring a lot of fans. The C7 BET will be good, not great. More interesting than any other conference tournament, but nowhere near the last 7 years.

A tourney with cuse, uconn, duke, pitt, ville, wf, nd, unc, nc state and bc would manage to attract some attention...
It wouldnt be the big east. It would be better.

 

[businesslawyer]

You can actually create a funny argument like this: my new conference consisting of Stony Brook, Coppin State, Charleston, Bucknell, and Hofstra has 5 NCAA tourney bids. It will be an incredible conference!

Come on. Don't compare auto bid teams with teams that earn a bid in an at large pool. Creighton and St Louis may not be threats to win the tournament, but they both had better seasons than UConn did and are damn good basketball teams.

 

[upstater]

Come on. Don't compare auto bid teams with teams that earn a bid in an at large pool. Creighton and St Louis may not be threats to win the tournament, but they both had better seasons than UConn did and are damn good basketball teams.

Did you miss the part where I called it a "funny" argument?

And, you sure Creighton isn't an autobid team? Look at their schedule.

 

[ZooCougar]

The thing I love about these three weeks, is that people actually give a crap about schools like "Creighton" and "Valparaiso"

 

[freescooter]

CTFAN raises a really good point I think. The problem of just the ever lengthening of the season with meaningless games really contributes to the problem. If you go back to 1989-90, the Dream Season, UConn played its first game on thanksgiving weekend at a pre-season tournament, the Great Alaskan Shootout. The NCAA limited teams to 1 "pre-season" Tournament every 4 years I think. Most teams didn't start until after Thanksgiving. This year, UConn's first game was November 9 and they had already played 5 regular season games BEFORE the 1989 team had played 1. I think this is contributing to basketball's loss of stature vs football in particular, because with a season that so dramatically overlaps and with so many games that are pretty meaningless, its hard to really get too pumped for Stony Brook or Maryland Eastern Shore. And while football has its cupcake games, too, there aren't as many and at east once you start conference play, every game means something.