Most Disappointing Big East Team Opening Night

[UC1995]

Outside of UConn, Villanova, and St Johns, I was a bit underwhelmed by tonight's play of the other teams. They seem like they are all going to win, and I am not sure what I was expecting but I was hoping for a bit more from the other Big East teams.

 

[shizzle787]

Xavier is supposed to be a really good team but they struggled. Creighton is now up 17 and may win by 30 so they ended up playing well.

 

[Get a Job]

All of these are concerning. These opponents are true basement dwellers. On the other hand, it's opening night.

 

[auror]

St. John's is up 60, but they are playing literally the worst team in the country.

 

[MJ1]

Creighton had nice comeback, if there freshman all come back next year they will be scary good. Lot’s of talent. Can score at will and with a year of experience under their belt, look out. But let’s just worry about this year for now. UConn looked good, but it is just CCSU. Good crowd and energy seemed high in the building.

 

[Jimdish255]

St. John's is up 60, but they are playing literally the worst team in the country.

Bishop Sycamore has a Basketball team too?

 

[auror]

Creighton had nice comeback, if there freshman all come back next year they will be scary good. Lot’s of talent. Can score at will and with a year of experience under their belt, look out. But let’s just worry about this year for now. UConn looked good, but it is just CCSU. Good crowd and energy seemed high in the building.

Arkansas Pine Bluff is also maybe the worst team in the country, so I wouldn't take too much positive from the comeback, considering the deficit in the first place.

Let it also be said that Central Connecticut might also be the worst team in the country.

 

[MJ1]

true, but they probably beat Pitt.

 

[seeya27]

true, but they probably beat Pitt.

Which leads to my next question. Have any Pitt fans on Twitter trashed our football team for being 'less than worthy?" J

Just askin' for a friend.

 

[bmayuc]

Conveniently, opening night clarifies quickly what elite teams take care of biz and which are pretenders. I was tired of hearing about Xavier & Butler myself. They were bad last year, soft. And not great start this year.

1. UConn
2. Nova
3. St. Johns

 

[MJ1]

In Xavier’s defense, they did not have Fremantle one of their best players.

 

[UconnU]

In Xavier’s defense, they did not have Fremantle one of their best players.

And it should have been a 6 point win. Niagara hit a full court heave as time expired.

 

[Kolumbo]

Big East is 8-0. A win is a win.

Seton Hall, DePaul, and Gtown (11/13/21) on the clock.

following this conference compared to the AAC, I can't even put into words . . .

 

[nelsonmuntz]

There are two outcomes in these early season games: a win or a loss. There is no column in the standings for style points. I am sure the ACC would have liked to go 8-0 night last. These early season games do matter in March when the Committee is selecting the field, because a few 6-3 nights against low majors will impact the computer rankings for the entire league by that point. Every night no one in the Big East loses to UC San Diego or Navy is the whole conference moving closer to another bid, and the top Big East teams moving closer to a slightly higher seeding.

I expect some insane upsets of P6 teams in the first month of this season because there was so much player movement in the offseason through the transfer portal that there is no way these major conference teams that have 6+ new players are on the same page yet. Some P6 teams are just going to have stinkers, and a lot of these low major teams may not have been hit by as much player movement as the high majors.

 

[Friarsnoop]

Some teams start off rusty, but every team won. The ACC had 3 bad losses, the Pac12 had two, and the Big Ten had one. The fewer upsets in non-conference play, the more likely the conference will have 6-7 bids in March.

 

[rayrayfor3]

There are two outcomes in these early season games: a win or a loss. There is no column in the standings for style points. I am sure the ACC would have liked to go 8-0 night last. These early season games do matter in March when the Committee is selecting the field, because a few 6-3 nights against low majors will impact the computer rankings for the entire league by that point. Every night no one in the Big East loses to UC San Diego or Navy is the whole conference moving closer to another bid, and the top Big East teams moving closer to a slightly higher seeding.

I expect some insane upsets of P6 teams in the first month of this season because there was so much player movement in the offseason through the transfer portal that there is no way these major conference teams that have 6+ new players are on the same page yet. Some P6 teams are just going to have stinkers, and a lot of these low major teams may not have been hit by as much player movement as the high majors.

There actually very much is a column for style points. Margin of victory will factor into these teams ranking metrics which qualifies if they are Q1/Q2/Q3 team. Obv a win is the most important thing but winning by a lot is also important.

 

[mauconnfan]

We ripped up CCSU and that’s great. But let’s worry about our Huskies moving forward. Early season wins and some losses sometime mean very little as to what a team will ultimately be come League play. All of these teams will be better when we play them, and a lot better then these Blue Devils.

 

[KingAG]

The funny thing is style points do matter in terms of your NCAA seeding. Beating bad teams is good, beating them by a lot is even better

 

[shizzle787]

There are two outcomes in these early season games: a win or a loss. There is no column in the standings for style points. I am sure the ACC would have liked to go 8-0 night last. These early season games do matter in March when the Committee is selecting the field, because a few 6-3 nights against low majors will impact the computer rankings for the entire league by that point. Every night no one in the Big East loses to UC San Diego or Navy is the whole conference moving closer to another bid, and the top Big East teams moving closer to a slightly higher seeding.

I expect some insane upsets of P6 teams in the first month of this season because there was so much player movement in the offseason through the transfer portal that there is no way these major conference teams that have 6+ new players are on the same page yet. Some P6 teams are just going to have stinkers, and a lot of these low major teams may not have been hit by as much player movement as the high majors.

One of the things I always liked about this league (unlike the AAC) is that they always took care of business against weaker competition.

 

[rollskies]

Definitely some rust with some BE teams yesterday. Creighton and Marquette have entirely new rosters so it will definitely take them some time for them to mesh, but overall i’m happy that the big east went 8-0 and did not lose 3 buy games like another conference that will not be named.

 

[Friarsnoop]

The funny thing is style points do matter in terms of your NCAA seeding. Beating bad teams is good, beating them by a lot is even better

The NCAA does cap margin of victory at 10 points in their NET rankings.

 

[Tiamat7]

Butler was uninspiring, for sure. In their defense, they were missing several key pieces including the starting point guard.

Xavier was without all-BE forward Freemantle, but regardless they underwhelmed. Lack of pop.

Very very early, so reserving judgment on all teams.

ACC laid some stinkers. Pitt is Pitt these days. But UVA losing to Navy?! Ouch. Truth is, this could be Tony Bennett's worst roster in a decade. His reputation alone accounts for their pre-season ACC ranking (#4) .

 

[aburks41]

In Xavier’s defense, they did not have Fremantle one of their best players.

You could take away Sanogo and we still win by 30 points last night. Xavier stinks if they can barely beat low major Niagara (who has finished above .500 just once in the last 7 seasons) even without one starter lol

 

[Dooooooomed]

The NCAA does cap margin of victory at 10 points in their NET rankings.

True, but MOV also affects adjusted offensive/defensive efficiency, which is another parameter that the NET uses in their calculations.

 

[gtcam]

Providence looks like that may have problems this year
Caught a bit of that game when I got home from Storrs
Cooley can't be very happy this morning

Also - St Johns and UConn looked awfully good in their running offense but that becomes terribly more difficult when the opposition is hitting shots. Both teams are extremely fast though

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I love these hot takes about how every team sucks because they didn't win by 50 in their first game of the season when several of these teams replaced half their roster in the offseason due to the Transfer Portal going nuts and weird covid eligibility rules. There are a lot of teams figuring stuff out in real time that should be settled down in a month.

The only thing the Big East needs to do is survive this first month without too many bad losses. I can guarantee there will be some though.

 

[ecasadoSBU]

Winning is the most important. You need all those wins. They will come in handy when the conference pecking order is established in March for NCAA bids. The year when the BET/NCAA was cancelled the Big East had a top notch OOC winning percentage of 80%... They were on their way to sending 7-8 teams. The league has to strive to do that again

 

[UConnStats]

I honestly don’t understand the Creighton votes. They’re relying on their stud freshman class and although imperfect, Kaluma and Nembhard both looked like future studs and Alexander clearly is skilled as well. They might not be as bad as people figured this year (not sure Butler is really better), and they certainly look like they have a bright future.

Xavier was missing Freemantle to their credit too.

 

[auror]

I honestly don’t understand the Creighton votes. They’re relying on their stud freshman class and although imperfect, Kaluma and Nembhard both looked like future studs and Alexander clearly is skilled as well. They might not be as bad as people figured this year (not sure Butler is really better), and they certainly look like they have a bright future.

Xavier was missing Freemantle to their credit too.

They were down 9 at the half and by 13 in the beginning of the 2nd half against a 350+ KenPom team. They were ~34 point favorites like us and while we won by 50, they won by 13. Even in winning they dropped almost 10 KenPom spots.

The poll opened while they were making their run and the lead was probably in the high single digits against an abhorrent team.

It sounds like you thought they'd be worse relative to others' expectations (they were preseason top 60 KenPom team), but they played horribly for a top 60 team. They missed their first 14 3-point attempts.