Preliminary Big East’s Best Teams | The Boneyard

Preliminary Big East’s Best Teams

jibsey

jibsey

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As the rosters are finalized in the Big East UConn has so far 6 players who will see a lot of floor time with college competitive experience. Reed, Solo, Stew, Ross, Silas and Smith. Karaban would make the 7th. Without injuries in March or April crunch time Hurley pulls back to using 8 players.
I don’t know what other teams have added but it seems like the BE is a 2 team race for first with us and St. John’s.
Taking into consideration that we don’t know until play is going for a while how is the order in the BE lining up? Are there 2 other teams that can jump over or even compete with UConn or St. John’s?
 
Creighton should be good. They brought in some really solid transfers (Freeman, Dix, Graves) but will have to rely on strong development from returners Green, McAndrew, Traudt, Zugic

The rest is looking pretty weak. It’s still way too early to project, but I’d say there are 3 tournament quality rosters in the BE and a couple of bubble teams right now
 
I'm not going to pretend I keep up with all of the changes, except for UConn. But I'm certain St John's and Creighton and Marquette will be good. It's the coaching and / or the program. Nova and PC and maybe Georgetown will take steps forward. DePaul will suck. X is a big question mark with Sean leaving. Don’t think either Hall or Butler will be competing for a BET tournament bye

These opinions are offered without any real knowledge of rosters
 
Marquette is going to need some jumps from the current crop to be good but I can see it.

Ross and Parham seem next in line for them. Think they get Gold back too and they have a 7’1 guy who RS last year that I wonder if he’ll be ready to play this year.
 
Tier 1 - Top 15 Teams/Tournament Locks
UConn
St John's
Creighton

Tier 2 - Tournament Contenders
Villanova
Xavier
Marquette
Providence

Tier 3 - Won't Kill Your Resume
Georgetown
DePaul
Butler

Tier 4 - Embarrassment to the Sport
Seton Hall

Shaka Smart is actively sabotaging what could have been a good team for Marquette.

It's going to be a down year for the Big East unless Willard and Pitino can make big jumps in year 1 with their brand new rosters
 
REB1094 said:
Creighton should be good. They brought in some really solid transfers (Freeman, Dix, Graves) but will have to rely on strong development from returners Green, McAndrew, Traudt, Zugic

The rest is looking pretty weak. It’s still way too early to project, but I’d say there are 3 tournament quality rosters in the BE and a couple of bubble teams right now
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I'm on the fence with regards to Creighton - it'll be a massive adjustment in terms of losing Kalkbrenner (see UConn last year without Cling Kong to clean up the paint) and not sure they have enough star power 1-4 to compete against top 15-20 teams.
 
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jibsey said:
As the rosters are finalized in the Big East UConn has so far 6 players who will see a lot of floor time with college competitive experience. Reed, Solo, Stew, Ross, Silas and Smith. Karaban would make the 7th. Without injuries in March or April crunch time Hurley pulls back to using 8 players.
I don’t know what other teams have added but it seems like the BE is a 2 team race for first with us and St. John’s.
Taking into consideration that we don’t know until play is going for a while how is the order in the BE lining up? Are there 2 other teams that can jump over or even compete with UConn or St. John’s?
Expand ...
Mullins is projected by, well almost everyone, to be OAD so he will definitely get minutes. AK would be 8th but main minutes guy if back.
 
jibsey said:
St. John’s is getting all the press for their portal team. It bugs me, I can’t help it.
Expand ...
St. John's is in the biggest sports market in the world, all their moves are magnified by 1000.

People are calling it the best portal class of all time, I think that's just the New York hyperbole speaking.
 
Mets1432 said:
St. John's is in the biggest sports market in the world, all their moves are magnified by 1000.

People are calling it the best portal class of all time, I think that's just the New York hyperbole speaking.
Expand ...
They are getting several me first players. Can Slick Rick reign them in?
 
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navery12 said:
Tier 1 - Top 15 Teams/Tournament Locks
UConn
St John's
Creighton

Tier 2 - Tournament Contenders
Villanova
Xavier
Marquette
Providence

Tier 3 - Won't Kill Your Resume
Georgetown
DePaul
Butler

Tier 4 - Embarrassment to the Sport
Seton Hall

Shaka Smart is actively sabotaging what could have been a good team for Marquette.

It's going to be a down year for the Big East unless Willard and Pitino can make big jumps in year 1 with their brand new rosters
Expand ...

I think the Top 7 will be pretty good.

UConn, St. John's, Creighton - Obvious

Xavier - Miller kind of blew it this year with a pretty talented team at Xavier, and Pitino Jr may be an improvement. Swain was a big loss. Conwell is good, but can be a pretty selfish player at times. I like the pickups.

Providence - English is on the hot seat. He gets a mulligan for Hopkins stealing PC's money, but he has a good squad coming in next year and a tournament bid is expected.

Marquette - Smart is way out on a limb with his roster management approach. We will find out if he is really smarter than everyone else next year.

Villanova - Neptune gone will help a lot by itself.

Others:

Depaul - Are they getting Gunn, Blocker and Benson back? If they are, Depaul won't suck. Enright was overrated and got more praise than he deserved in part because of his Adam Morrison look.

Butler - I have no way to judge if this batch of low-major transfers is better or worse than the last batch.

Georgetown - I have no idea what this team's roster is at this point. Who is coming back?

Seton Hall - I have defended Holloway for years, but if the rumors are right about them having some NIL money, and this is the team that they are ending up with, then Holloway may be in over his head.


I think overall the conference should be a little better than last year. The Top 3 should be Top 20 teams the whole season unless there are major injuries. Providence should be the 4th best team, but English has never proven he really knows how to win. We will find out.
 
I'm not as confident in the cosching abilities of Willard or Jr Pitino as the schools that hired them. I personally don't believe that either would have ever landed a HC gig at a level higher than a youth league if it wasn't for the accomplishment's of both of their fathers
 
FfldCntyFan said:
I'm not as confident in the cosching abilities of Willard or Jr Pitino as the schools that hired them. I personally don't believe that either would have ever landed a HC gig at a level higher than a youth league if it wasn't for the accomplishment's of both of their fathers
Expand ...
What, you don't think flaming out at Minnesota is good enough? Surely Pitino II deserves a second, third and fourth chance to succeed
 
nelsonmuntz said:
I think the Top 7 will be pretty good.

UConn, St. John's, Creighton - Obvious

Xavier - Miller kind of blew it this year with a pretty talented team at Xavier, and Pitino Jr may be an improvement. Swain was a big loss. Conwell is good, but can be a pretty selfish player at times. I like the pickups.

Providence - English is on the hot seat. He gets a mulligan for Hopkins stealing PC's money, but he has a good squad coming in next year and a tournament bid is expected.

Marquette - Smart is way out on a limb with his roster management approach. We will find out if he is really smarter than everyone else next year.

Villanova - Neptune gone will help a lot by itself.

Others:

Depaul - Are they getting Gunn, Blocker and Benson back? If they are, Depaul won't suck. Enright was overrated and got more praise than he deserved in part because of his Adam Morrison look.

Butler - I have no way to judge if this batch of low-major transfers is better or worse than the last batch.

Georgetown - I have no idea what this team's roster is at this point. Who is coming back?

Seton Hall - I have defended Holloway for years, but if the rumors are right about them having some NIL money, and this is the team that they are ending up with, then Holloway may be in over his head.


I think overall the conference should be a little better than last year. The Top 3 should be Top 20 teams the whole season unless there are major injuries. Providence should be the 4th best team, but English has never proven he really knows how to win. We will find out.
Expand ...
Problem with Villanova is that they haven't really brought in enough good players. They will have a tough year next year based on their current roster and based who is left they have a chance to get. It might Take him at least 2 years to get Villanova at a chance for the tourney. Of course not over yet but based on current roster I would put them in the bottom.
 
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CTFAN4LIFE said:
I'm on the fence with regards to Creighton - it'll be a massive adjustment in terms of losing Kalkbrenner (see UConn last year without Cling Kong to clean up the paint) and not sure they have enough star power 1-4 to compete against top 15-20 teams.
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Creighton in their AK ( after Kalkbrenner ) era will be interesting
 
Pitino has virtually all new players. Are they guaranteed to defend as well as last years’s team? They did as well as they did because of that pressing defense. Everyone is assuming it’s going to be automatic for them.
 
AZHuskiePop said:
Creighton in their AK ( after Kalkbrenner ) era will be interesting
Expand ...
Agreed. Lots of questions- Kalk replacement, PG effectiveness, will the wings be good enough, and will there be a dip in coaching staff focus (with McDermott heir apparent a bit of a shuffle?)? Will be interesting indeed. I could see a bit of a gap between us and St John's and then Creighton a half to full notch lower.
 
CTFAN4LIFE said:
Agreed. Lots of questions- Kalk replacement, PG effectiveness, will the wings be good enough, and will there be a dip in coaching staff focus (with McDermott heir apparent a bit of a shuffle?)? Will be interesting indeed. I could see a bit of a gap between us and St John's and then Creighton a half to full notch lower.
Expand ...
It's going to be interesting to see them without Kalkbrenner for sure. He was such an integral part of how they played defense and frankly there wasn't a better big in the country at protecting the rim without fouling. When we matched up with them, his drop coverage absolutely killed us and allowed all their perimeter players to overplay the 3 point line. I think they'll be pretty good, but they're going to look a LOT different.

They brought in some good players though; both the kids from Iowa are good and Nik Graves scored a lot but was kinda inefficient. I'm not going to pretend I've seen enough of the 7-footer from Serbia to have a real fleshed out opinion, but there's just no way he can impact the game in the same way Kalkbrenner did, at least not this year.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
Xavier - Miller kind of blew it this year with a pretty talented team at Xavier, and Pitino Jr may be an improvement. Swain was a big loss. Conwell is good, but can be a pretty selfish player at times. I like the pickups.
Expand ...
Conwell signed with Louisville.
 
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I don't know, I don't think Hurley is done with the Portal even if AK stays. Seems to me we still need to add a couple players. I guess they will be more in the reserve roll . But as of now our roster is not finalized.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
Georgetown - I have no idea what this team's roster is at this point. Who is coming back?
Expand ...

Putting aside Thomas Sorber for now, six returning lettermen but only one starter (Malik Mack) to go along with four inbound transfers and four walk-ons.
 
Mets1432 said:
St. John's is in the biggest sports market in the world, all their moves are magnified by 1000.

People are calling it the best portal class of all time, I think that's just the New York hyperbole speaking.
Expand ...

They lost the best guy in the portal. Although he may be NBA bound

I don’t think RJ was happy sitting the last 4 minutes of the season

Is that getting any play? Ricky choked
 
willie99 said:
They lost the best guy in the portal. Although he may be NBA bound

I don’t think RJ was happy sitting the last 4 minutes of the season

Is that getting any play? Ricky choked
Expand ...
Yes. And as a UConn fan I see that Ricky Scumbag is attempting to wrestle the attention and media focus from the Huskies in the BE with the story of his vigilantes and his son at Xavier.
He won the BE for 1 season, made a snarky comment about waving at Storrs and was planning a parade route when he was bounced out during the Tourney’s first weekend against a #10 seed.
There is only one thing to do to shut him and their fans up. kick them to the curb…..on the court.
 
jibsey said:
Yes. And as a UConn fan I see that Ricky Scumbag is attempting to wrestle the attention and media focus from the Huskies in the BE with the story of his vigilantes and his son at Xavier.
He won the BE for 1 season, made a snarky comment about waving at Storrs and was planning a parade route when he was bounced out during the Tourney’s first weekend against a #10 seed.
There is only one thing to do to shut him and their fans up. kick them to the curb…..on the court.
Expand ...
You need to have a villain in any narrative. Fortunately, Rick happily obliges.
 
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