Jay Wright: This is the Best BE

[CTMike]

You could say that, but we'll probably have three top 10 teams tomorrow when you look at the AP poll. If that's a sham, the Big East is doing a nice job tricking people. I'd love to see 30% of the AAC in the top 10, that would be something. I know you don't like silly metrics and polls, so I guess you can enjoy looking at your banners. As I've said early and often, nobody can take that history away from you and it was impressive. Doesn't really have anything to do with conference strength which was the point of this thread, but I know it's the default argument point here when things aren't going well.

So just to be clear - you agree with JW's assessment that this is the best the "Big East" has ever been - and you back it up by touting how you are 4th in RPI heading in to conference play? Way to set your sights high!

 

[champs99and04]

NBE is not an excellent conference. OBE was excellent. You are less than that. I want you to do well but wish you didn't have the name of the greatest conference in history. Or at least, if you use that name that you don't represent it as one and the same as the one that had 3 teams in 1 final four. And that was the stupid, false thing Wright said.
Funny thing is our conferences are comparable. We think our conference sucks and are afraid it will be the death of us. You think your's is excellent. JJay thinks it's as good as any real BE year.
It's funny...or sad.

The NBE and the American are not remotely comparable as basketball conferences. I wish they were, but all you have to do is look at the results. Teams from the Big East win games against quality competition, the AAC does not.

Doesn't mean UConn, SMU (assuming they were eligible), or Cincinnati can't go on a run...but the Big East will likely lap the AAC X3 in regards to bids on selection Sunday.

 

[Fishy]

The idea that the Big East is better than it has ever been is just ridiculous.

Wright looked stupid saying it and people look stupid defending it.

It's a nice league, but Butler, Providence and Xavier aren't going to leave too many people shaking in their boots, no matter what number you put in front of them.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

The idea that the Big East is better than it has ever been is just ridiculous.

Wright looked stupid saying it and people look stupid defending it.

It's a nice league, but Butler, Providence and Xavier aren't going to leave too many people shaking in their boots, no matter what number you put in front of them.

The bottom of the Old Big East (circa Miami/VTech/BCU) was terrible. The 2005-2012 Big East was the best basketball conference in history.

 

[Fishy]

The bottom of the Old Big East (circa Miami/VTech/BCU) was terrible. The 2005-2012 Big East was the best basketball conference in history.

Is there even one great team in the Big East this season? No. Are there any very good teams in the Big East this season? Not really.

There are some good teams - I'd guess Nova's the best of the bunch and they were handled pretty easily by Virginia and Oklahoma.

There used to be monsters in the Big East - there be no monsters there now.

 

[caw]

The NBE and the American are not remotely comparable as basketball conferences. I wish they were, but all you have to do is look at the results. Teams from the Big East win games against quality competition, the AAC does not.

Doesn't mean UConn, SMU (assuming they were eligible), or Cincinnati can't go on a run...but the Big East will likely lap the AAC X3 in regards to bids on selection Sunday.

I don't have a ton of time right now but what top 25 teams (in tomorrow's polls) do BE teams have wins against? I know PC beat Zona (without Tarc). Is there another I'm forgetting?

They are doing something bottom AAC teams don't and beating lots of decent-mediocre-bad teams but I don't recall many top 25 wins.

X beat Cincy but...

 

[BigEast]

Are there any very good teams in the Big East this season? Not really.

OK, so that leaves about five "very good" teams in the country. Sure thing.

 

[BigEast]

I don't have a ton of time right now but what top 25 teams (in tomorrow's polls) do BE teams have wins against? I know PC beat Zona (without Tarc). Is there another I'm forgetting?

They are doing something bottom AAC teams don't and beating lots of decent-mediocre-bad teams but I don't recall many top 25 wins.

X beat Cincy but...

X won at Cincy
Butler won at Cincy
Butler beat Purdue
Providence beat Arizona on a neutral court
Georgetown beat Syracuse
Xavier beat Michigan

And now since they've built up their resumes in non-conf, they are scoring top-25 victories against each other. Providence with a top-10 win at Butler, Nova beating top-10 X, etc.

Remember - X, and Providence weren't even ranked when the season started. Butler was like 25th. So it's not like these teams have beat creampuffs relying on a ranking they never earned.

 

[BigEast]

The bottom of the Old Big East (circa Miami/VTech/BCU) was terrible. The 2005-2012 Big East was the best basketball conference in history.

It's hard to even compare a 10 team conference with what the Big East became in the football years with two divisions and 16 or 18 teams or whatever it was. It's a bit of apples and oranges, it's more today like it was originally.

But I think Jay's point was to highlight how good this conference is. It's his job to push the league as it always has been. Not sure why that's a big deal for an AAC member but I'm happy to keep debating it.

 

[caw]

OK, so that leaves about five "very good" teams in the country. Sure thing.

KU, ISU, OU, Maryland MSU (with Valentine) and UVA are the best I've seen so far this year.

Outside of those six. , there are probably about 20-30 who are pretty darn close.

I will say, when Nova is on from 3 they are scary, but is that going to work for a full tourney run? PC has Dunn, that should be enough to scare plenty of teams, but then again, they have never won an NCAA game, so...

Butler is like a poor mans Nova. X I haven't seen enough to comment on.

 

[uconnfan68]

It's hard to even compare a 10 team conference with what the Big East became in the football years with two divisions and 16 or 18 teams or whatever it was. It's a bit of apples and oranges, it's more today like it was originally.

But I think Jay's point was to highlight how good this conference is. It's his job to push the league as it always has been. Not sure why that's a big deal for an AAC member but I'm happy to keep debating it.

Its OK, we just want to make sure we get higher ranked BE at tourney time.

 

[caw]

X won at Cincy
Butler won at Cincy
Butler beat Purdue
Providence beat Arizona on a neutral court
Georgetown beat Syracuse
Xavier beat Michigan

And now since they've built up their resumes in non-conf, they are scoring top-25 victories against each other. Providence with a top-10 win at Butler, Nova beating top-10 X, etc.

Remember - X, and Providence weren't even ranked when the season started. Butler was like 25th. So it's not like these teams have beat creampuffs relying on a ranking they never earned.

Cincy is/was a top 25 team (but as I meant to imply, they probably won't be in the next poll after losing to Temple).

Purdue I didn't remember. That should be a solid top 25 win by years end (though they did just lose to Iowa).

Arizona didn't have their starting center, but I mentioned it anyway.

Georgetown bad SJU beat Cuse (and I write this knowing UConn lost to Cuse) but Cuse is not a good team this year and not close to being ranked now.

Michigan is also not ranked and shouldn't be in the coming polls (and without Levert...)

So unless something shocking happens in the polls when they come out that equates to a win over Purdue, maybe Cincy and a depleted Zona as the conferences only top 25 wins? Like I said they beat almost all of the mediocre/bad teams and most of the decent ones but didn't play or win many against many top teams.

PC has a win against an injured Zona and a loss to MSU
SHU didn't play a current top 25 team
Nova got crushed by OU and UVA
Georgetown lost to Duke and Maryland
Xavier beat Cincy, Dayton and Michigan (though none may be ranked this week, have to come back to this after the polls come out)
Creighton lost to OU
Marquette lost to Iowa
Butler beat Purdue but lost to Miami
SJU lost to Vanderbilt
DePaul

Let me throw your comment on PC and X being unranked back at you by saying a win early over a team that remains healthy but drops out of the polls, never to return, is not impressive and really shouldn't equate to a top 25 win in my opinion. That likely includes at least three of the BEs early signature wins in Cusex2 and LSU, if not others.

 

[TRest]

Cincy is/was a top 25 team (but as I meant to imply, they probably won't be in the next poll after losing to Temple).

Purdue I didn't remember. That should be a solid top 25 win by years end (though they did just lose to Iowa).

Arizona didn't have their starting center, but I mentioned it anyway.

Georgetown bad SJU beat Cuse (and I write this knowing UConn lost to Cuse) but Cuse is not a good team this year and not close to being ranked now.

Michigan is also not ranked and shouldn't be in the coming polls (and without Levert...)

So unless something shocking happens in the polls when they come out that equates to a win over Purdue, maybe Cincy and a depleted Zona as the conferences only top 25 wins? Like I said they beat almost all of the mediocre/bad teams and most of the decent ones but didn't play or win many against many top teams.

PC has a win against an injured Zona and a loss to MSU
SHU didn't play a current top 25 team
Nova got crushed by OU and UVA
Georgetown lost to Duke and Maryland
Xavier beat Cincy, Dayton and Michigan (though none may be ranked this week, have to come back to this after the polls come out)
Creighton lost to OU
Marquette lost to Iowa
Butler beat Purdue but lost to Miami
SJU lost to Vanderbilt
DePaul

Let me throw your comment on PC and X being unranked back at you by saying a win early over a team that remains healthy but drops out of the polls, never to return, is not impressive and really shouldn't equate to a top 25 win in my opinion. That likely includes at least three of the BEs early signature wins in Cusex2 and LSU, if not others.

Hasn't Butler lost consecutive games? How are they going to hang around in the top 10?

 

[upstater]

KU, ISU, OU, Maryland MSU (with Valentine) and UVA are the best I've seen so far this year.

Outside of those six. , there are probably about 20-30 who are pretty darn close.

I will say, when Nova is on from 3 they are scary, but is that going to work for a full tourney run? PC has Dunn, that should be enough to scare plenty of teams, but then again, they have never won an NCAA game, so...

Butler is like a poor mans Nova. X I haven't seen enough to comment on.

If John Calipari were a better coach, they'd be the best. They have the pieces this year, a great amount of talent and seniority. Ulis, Briscoe, Murray, Poythress, Lee. They are thin, and Labissiere isn't giving them much, but the two big men can hold down the middle, and Ulis + Murray are probably the best PG-Wing combo in the entire country. Murray is obviously the star of that team. So shut him down, if you can, and they can be taken out. And before the Calipari defenders cry foul, you can't deny that he does less with the amount of talent he gets than anyone else.

 

[BigEast]

Hasn't Butler lost consecutive games? How are they going to hang around in the top 10?

The two losses are to #6 and #12, but you are probably right - they probably fall to 10-15.

 

[BigEast]

Cincy is/was a top 25 team (but as I meant to imply, they probably won't be in the next poll after losing to Temple).



Let me throw your comment on PC and X being unranked back at you by saying a win early over a team that remains healthy but drops out of the polls, never to return, is not impressive and really shouldn't equate to a top 25 win in my opinion. That likely includes at least three of the BEs early signature wins in Cusex2 and LSU, if not others.

I'm not really sure where we can go with this if you claim every good win is not good, and every loss is bad. The end result today is high rankings in the AP Poll - which is certainly not scientific; and high rankings in the RPI - which is scientific. So either way, perception or math, it's worked out for the conference.

 

[IMind]

You're all freaking crazy if you don't think Mark Few is a great coach.

Schools in that league have no business doing what Gonzaga does yearly. He's made the NCAA tournament every year and he's been to five Sweet Sixteens.

There's a reason no one else in a similar circumstance has done what Gonzaga has done - they don't have Mark Few.

What rubs me the wrong way about Gonzaga probably has very little to do with Mark Few's merits as a coach. In his sixteen years he's had 5 All-Americans, including the best player in the country once, and he's entered the NCAA tournament ranked in the top 10 seven times... He makes the NCAA every year by virtue of playing in a weak conference. So either one of two things is happening... he's under performing his talent OR his talent and ranking are over rated. He certainly has set himself up pretty well there.

 

[JSB60]

1985. That is all.

 

[champs99and04]

I don't have a ton of time right now but what top 25 teams (in tomorrow's polls) do BE teams have wins against? I know PC beat Zona (without Tarc). Is there another I'm forgetting?

They are doing something bottom AAC teams don't and beating lots of decent-mediocre-bad teams but I don't recall many top 25 wins.

X beat Cincy but...

I'm not sure exactly who will be in the top 25 later today, but the only definites are Arizona and Purdue. I suppose it's possible that George Washington and Dayton could sneak back in with Utah, Cincinnati, and Baylor likely to fall out.

For comparison sake, though, the ACC has just five wins against teams ranked currently in the top 25 (the Big East has four), and that conference is 50% bigger than the Big East.

It's kind of a flawed argument, anyway, since beating teams in the top 25 or on the cusp of the top 25 is likely to keep those teams out of the top 25. You could deny UConn's tournament candidacy by making the same argument ("they haven't beaten anybody in the top 25"), but really, when you step back and look at it, they've only played one team (Maryland) that would be in the top 25 independent of their result against UConn. The difference between 25 and 50 being so small, it doesn't make much sense to differentiate between them.

That being said, I don't necessarily disagree with what I think is your primary point (that there aren't any powerhouses in the Big East). It's more than conceivable that five of the six bids from the Big East could be gone by the end of the first weekend, just like they were last year, and it certainly wouldn't shock anyone if they went 0 for the final 4 for the third straight year of the conferences existence.

But if there aren't any powerhouses in the Big East, there certainly aren't very many, if any at all, in the rest of college basketball, so that is a qualification hardly unique to the Big East. 'Nova losing to Oklahoma and UVA - one on a neutral court and one on the road - does little to expose them as a fraud, unless we're going to say the same things about Duke and Louisville.

With college basketball being as stretched as it is this season, all of the top leagues begin to look sort of similar. But the Big East is definitely in that first tier - along with the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, and maybe SEC - while the American is in the third tier. Swap UConn out of the AAC and place them in the Big East, and that gap increases. By no means am I arguing that the Big East is a more viable home for UConn athletics, but at the same time, there is no sense in pretending that the two leagues are the same.

 

[caw]

I'm not really sure where we can go with this if you claim every good win is not good, and every loss is bad. The end result today is high rankings in the AP Poll - which is certainly not scientific; and high rankings in the RPI - which is scientific. So either way, perception or math, it's worked out for the conference.

Didn't say that, just said who exactly have the teams in the BE beaten to make others fear them? Where are their signature wins?

RPI is scientific but I don't think you understand how it works. It is relatively easy to manipulate by scheduling. For example, let's say you have two teams that have played 13 games each. Team A is 12-2 and Team B is 12-0 and has beaten Team A head to head. Which team is better? Which should be ranked higher? Hint it's not Team A and yet RPI has Villanova ahead of Oklahoma.

 

[caw]

I'm not sure exactly who will be in the top 25 later today, but the only definites are Arizona and Purdue. I suppose it's possible that George Washington and Dayton could sneak back in with Utah, Cincinnati, and Baylor likely to fall out.

For comparison sake, though, the ACC has just five wins against teams ranked currently in the top 25 (the Big East has four), and that conference is 50% bigger than the Big East.

It's kind of a flawed argument, anyway, since beating teams in the top 25 or on the cusp of the top 25 is likely to keep those teams out of the top 25. You could deny UConn's tournament candidacy by making the same argument ("they haven't beaten anybody in the top 25"), but really, when you step back and look at it, they've only played one team (Maryland) that would be in the top 25 independent of their result against UConn. The difference between 25 and 50 being so small, it doesn't make much sense to differentiate between them.

That being said, I don't necessarily disagree with what I think is your primary point (that there aren't any powerhouses in the Big East). It's more than conceivable that five of the six bids from the Big East could be gone by the end of the first weekend, just like they were last year, and it certainly wouldn't shock anyone if they went 0 for the final 4 for the third straight year of the conferences existence.

But if there aren't any powerhouses in the Big East, there certainly aren't very many, if any at all, in the rest of college basketball, so that is a qualification hardly unique to the Big East. 'Nova losing to Oklahoma and UVA - one on a neutral court and one on the road - does little to expose them as a fraud, unless we're going to say the same things about Duke and Louisville.

With college basketball being as stretched as it is this season, all of the top leagues begin to look sort of similar. But the Big East is definitely in that first tier - along with the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, and maybe SEC - while the American is in the third tier. Swap UConn out of the AAC and place them in the Big East, and that gap increases. By no means am I arguing that the Big East is a more viable home for UConn athletics, but at the same time, there is no sense in pretending that the two leagues are the same.

I have long said this is a very open season. Basically, there are six teams that have a bit of separation but not a single one from the BE, and honestly even those six aren't juggernauts. That said, I do think this is such an open year the top 5-6 BE teams have as good a shot as any of the teams 7-whatever of winning the NCAAT.

Basically it comes down to Jay Wright making a silly statement and Fishy being right about anyone who tries to argue for it. The best years of the BE recent, or not, had teams to be feared nationally. Historically great teams used to reside in the BE. I'm not talking about programs but individual teams. I don't see that this year in the BE.

 

[David 76]

, but you most certainly won a more recent Championship if that's the metric you'd like to use for strength of conference this year, which was the point of this thread.

That is not the point of the thread. It is your point, crashing our site and being an . The point is about what J Wright said. Which is dumb. You have a moment as being the 4th ranked conference. Enjoy it. It won't last. But I bet the OBE was ranked better than 4th a few times. It is a stupid statement to defend.

I remember when I used to brag on rankings and strength of schedule. It was about 17 years ago.

 

[David 76]

The NBE and the American are not remotely comparable as basketball conferences. I wish they were, but all you have to do is look at the results. Teams from the Big East win games against quality competition, the AAC does not.

Doesn't mean UConn, SMU (assuming they were eligible), or Cincinnati can't go on a run...but the Big East will likely lap the AAC X3 in regards to bids on selection Sunday.

Champs, you are looking at a snapshot. I think if you look over their 3 year history, they are both mediocre. UConn may have more great wins than the NBE.

 

[Brochacho]

X won at Cincy
Butler won at Cincy
Butler beat Purdue
Providence beat Arizona on a neutral court
Georgetown beat Syracuse
Xavier beat Michigan

And now since they've built up their resumes in non-conf, they are scoring top-25 victories against each other. Providence with a top-10 win at Butler, Nova beating top-10 X, etc.

Remember - X, and Providence weren't even ranked when the season started. Butler was like 25th. So it's not like these teams have beat creampuffs relying on a ranking they never earned.

Beat a single digit seed in the NCAA tourney then come back and tell us how good the conference is.
2015
6 Butler. Win: 11 Texas. Loss: 3 Notre Dame.
6 Xavier. Wins: 11 Ole Miss, 14 Georgia State. Loss: 2 Arizona.
1 Villanova. Win: 16 Lafayette. Loss: 8 NC State.
6 Providence. Loss: 11 Dayton.
4 Georgetown. Win: 13 Eastern Washington. Loss: 5 Utah.
9 St. John's. Loss: 8 San Diego State.
2014
3 Creighton. Win: 14 Louisiana-Lafayette. Loss: 6 Baylor.
2 Villanova. Win: 15 Milwaukee. Loss: 7 UConn.
11 Providence. Loss 6 UNC.
12 Xavier. Loss 12 NC State.

That's a 7-10 record for the vaunted the Big East conference.

 

[intlzncster]

KU, ISU, OU, Maryland MSU (with Valentine) and UVA are the best I've seen so far this year.

Outside of those six. , there are probably about 20-30 who are pretty darn close.

I will say, when Nova is on from 3 they are scary, but is that going to work for a full tourney run? PC has Dunn, that should be enough to scare plenty of teams, but then again, they have never won an NCAA game, so...

Butler is like a poor mans Nova. X I haven't seen enough to comment on.

From the two times I've seen them play, Xavier looks legit. Not a team I'd be excited about playing in March.