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Message: [QUOTE="nelsonmuntz, post: 4467442, member: 833"] Generally the Big East has a lot of parity, and a lot of teams right around .500. I think this season will be different for a few reasons: 1) UConn seems a significant step above the rest of the league. UConn is not unbeatable, but there are only 3 or 4 teams that have a meaningful probability shot at taking down UConn. 2) Georgetown is terrible. It is a badly coached team that has a few players that can play a little. It is going to get destroyed. This year's Depaul and Providence are two of the weaker rosters the Big East has had since the split. I don't feel great about my 4 win prediction for Depaul after watching Depaul get thumped by Duquesne last night, and Providence's schedule is a joke and they have still struggled. Those should be 6 wins for most of the league. 3) I feel like Xavier, Creighton, and Marquette are all 5 to 7 seed caliber teams. Competitive, capable of playing on the second weekend with some improvement, but not dominant or even Top 15 other than maybe Xavier if things break right. 4) St. Johns and Villanova are bubble teams, at best. I honestly just don't like Villanova, and only predicted them to finish .500 because they have some high level talent and the bottom of the league is not great. Seton Hall and Butler aren't terrible, but they are flawed. 5) Despite it not being a great year for the Big East, there haven't been a lot of bad losses in the OOC, and the ones that happened involved bottom half BE teams or happened when a team was missing a key player. Nebraska over Creighton was the only loss by one of my Top 6 BE teams against a team outside of the Top 50 unless Kalkbrenner (Creighton) or Whitmore (Villanova) were missing, and other than a few of St. Johns games like against Niagara, there hasn't even been close games by the top 6 teams against bad teams. Even Butler and Providence don't have a really bad loss, although PC has played with fire a few times. Seton Hall (Siena) is the only non-Depaul/Georgetown Big East team that has a straight up bad loss. Why does that matter? The Big East teams are consistent and don't screw up, making them hard to upset. Compare that with the SEC train wreck on TV last night, where Auburn almost lost to Georgia State and Jackson State/Mississippi State was a one possession game until about 6 minutes left. Auburn and Mississippi State could lose to anyone. Georgetown and Depaul need someone to have an off night to beat them, and the Big East teams don't have a lot of off nights. [/QUOTE]

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