Playing Pitt at the Pete is possibly one of the toughest road games in the conference…so to see Rutgers come and beat a depleted, but still very solid, ranked Pitt team this weekend a few days after retiring ranked Villanova at home shows that it’s not just a fluke. Will the Scarlet Knights make the BE Tourney? Probably not. They are 10-11, still under .500 with only 8 OOC wins and a 2-6 record in the conference. But those two wins are against top ranked teams…showing that they have recruited some good young talent and will use this to propel into the future.

This, however, is a shining example of the state of the new Big East. Rutgers has basically no history in basketball. They are the doormat of the league and teams such as Syracuse, Georgetown, Connecticut, etc. rely on Rutgers to help them through an otherwise brutal conference schedule. Problem is that Rutgers is a newly resurgent football school and thanks to the new Big East, actually has some legs when venturing out into the basketball recruiting market. It’s the same thing in Tampa and other Big East cities. Schools which were down are now going to rise back up. Teams that never had risen will rise out of oblivion.

The Big East has become a super conference and this year it’s all becoming clear. No win is a guaranteed win. While this means we will witness incredible games through the beginning of March, it also will test how much understanding the selection committee has. You can argue that at least 10 BE teams are worthy of the NCAA’s right now. Conn (23), WVU (32), Louisville (36), Syracuse (40), ND (41) and Providence (50) are unranked teams that are in the RPI top 50. What’s interesting is that only Louisville and ND are in the top third of the BE standings, and that’s with 2 conference losses.

We’ve all talked about this before, but these latest victories by RU, a team that didn’t even have one conference win before beating Villanova last week, show us that we have no idea what to expect in March. If we see less than 7 teams in the tournament this year, the buzz about splitting is going to become louder and louder. Just my 2 cents.

My thoughts on Rutgers is that I am oh so happy that we played them when we did, and that we beat them at the Dome. It is not a slam dunk that we beat them at the Rac, or at the Dome, the way our young and inexperienced team is playing. Plus we are now down to 7 scholarship players and 4 of them are freshmen.

I fully expect that the BET and the NIT are possible again. Hopefully next year we'll be a bubble team for the big dance. This conference in nearly every sport is just impossibly tough and balanced.

Orange Eagles Wrote:Playing Pitt at the Pete is possibly one of the toughest road games in the conference…so to see Rutgers come and beat a depleted, but still very solid, ranked Pitt team this weekend a few days after retiring ranked Villanova at home shows that it’s not just a fluke. Will the Scarlet Knights make the BE Tourney? Probably not. They are 10-11, still under .500 with only 8 OOC wins and a 2-6 record in the conference. But those two wins are against top ranked teams…showing that they have recruited some good young talent and will use this to propel into the future.

This, however, is a shining example of the state of the new Big East. Rutgers has basically no history in basketball. They are the doormat of the league and teams such as Syracuse, Georgetown, Connecticut, etc. rely on Rutgers to help them through an otherwise brutal conference schedule. Problem is that Rutgers is a newly resurgent football school and thanks to the new Big East, actually has some legs when venturing out into the basketball recruiting market. It’s the same thing in Tampa and other Big East cities. Schools which were down are now going to rise back up. Teams that never had risen will rise out of oblivion.

The Big East has become a super conference and this year it’s all becoming clear. No win is a guaranteed win. While this means we will witness incredible games through the beginning of March, it also will test how much understanding the selection committee has. You can argue that at least 10 BE teams are worthy of the NCAA’s right now. Conn (23), WVU (32), Louisville (36), Syracuse (40), ND (41) and Providence (50) are unranked teams that are in the RPI top 50. What’s interesting is that only Louisville and ND are in the top third of the BE standings, and that’s with 2 conference losses.

We’ve all talked about this before, but these latest victories by RU, a team that didn’t even have one conference win before beating Villanova last week, show us that we have no idea what to expect in March. If we see less than 7 teams in the tournament this year, the buzz about splitting is going to become louder and louder. Just my 2 cents.

In terms of Rutgers, as a fellow football school, I'd rather they be successful than Seton Hall. But I only want them to be as successful as the Pirates, not moreso.

As for the Big East as a whole. It's a strange kind of year. The super conferences are likely to get 34 bids total. The Pac-10 has 6 of those sewn up at this point in time. And it is extremely unlikely they will lose any of those between now and tourney time.

The other 28 bids are up for grabs and a lot can happen between now and March, but a good guess at the moment would be:

Big Ten - 5
SEC - 5
Big 12 - 6
ACC - 5
Big East - 7

The wildcard conference in this is the ACC. They are the leading RPI conference but have only 2 bids sewn up so far - I'd say 3, but with Clemson's history of imploding in February and March, it's 2.

In the past, teams beating either UNC or Duke has helped propelled ACC teams into the tourney, but I just don't see it this year. They could actually only get 4 bids despite being the highest rated RPI conference.

Makes you wonder about the new RPI.

By the way, using the Old RPI formula, the Big East is the Top Conference followed by the Pac 10 and the ACC.

Currently using the Old RPI formula the Big East has 10 of the Top 50 teams. The Pac-10, the ACC, and the Big 12 each have 5.


Cheers,
Neil

For what its worth...Billy Packer, who has never been a BE man, said he thought we get eight if things continue as they are. If we only get seven for the second yr in a row, then the everyone in the leauge needs to take a hard look at what we're doing as a conference

I didn't hear this myself, but a poster on a WVU board said he heard Tom Lucci, a newspaper guy in NJ, saying the two sides need to seperate. Bascially the argument was that too many good bball teams are getting lost in the shuffle because of the size of the league and so few teams getting to the NCAAs

There was a time when 7 out of 9 BE teams went to the NCAAs..now we are looking at 7 out of 16?? Unacceptable in my book

BTW, the poster said that Lucci thought the football schools go to 10 if they do decide to go it alone...interesting rumor if nothing else

Jackson

Jackson1011 Wrote:For what its worth...Billy Packer, who has never been a BE man, said he thought we get eight if things continue as they are. If we only get seven for the second yr in a row, then the everyone in the leauge needs to take a hard look at what we're doing as a conference

I didn't hear this myself, but a poster on a WVU board said he heard Tom Lucci, a newspaper guy in NJ, saying the two sides need to seperate. Bascially the argument was that too many good bball teams are getting lost in the shuffle because of the size of the league and so few teams getting to the NCAAs

There was a time when 7 out of 9 BE teams went to the NCAAs..now we are looking at 7 out of 16?? Unacceptable in my book

BTW, the poster said that Lucci thought the football schools go to 10 if they do decide to go it alone...interesting rumor if nothing else

Jackson

I am almost sure that we only got 6 in last year. I was opposed to a split at first, because of rivalries with Georgetown and Nova, but I think it may be for the best in the long run.

Agreed. I'd like to have an agreement where the old rivalries can still exist in OOC (i.e. 'Cuse still plays Georgetown, Nova, St. Johns), but this is just too big for basketball.

cuseroc Wrote:

Jackson1011 Wrote:For what its worth...Billy Packer, who has never been a BE man, said he thought we get eight if things continue as they are. If we only get seven for the second yr in a row, then the everyone in the leauge needs to take a hard look at what we're doing as a conference

I didn't hear this myself, but a poster on a WVU board said he heard Tom Lucci, a newspaper guy in NJ, saying the two sides need to seperate. Bascially the argument was that too many good bball teams are getting lost in the shuffle because of the size of the league and so few teams getting to the NCAAs

There was a time when 7 out of 9 BE teams went to the NCAAs..now we are looking at 7 out of 16?? Unacceptable in my book

BTW, the poster said that Lucci thought the football schools go to 10 if they do decide to go it alone...interesting rumor if nothing else

Jackson

I am almost sure that we only got 6 in last year. I was opposed to a split at first, because of rivalries with Georgetown and Nova, but I think it may be for the best in the long run.

-- I think your right...last yr we had Louisville, G-Town, ND, Marquette, Pitt and Nova...syracuse and WVU had 20 wins and were left out (something that would have been unheard of 10 yrs ago)


Jackson

Orange Eagles Wrote:Agreed. I'd like to have an agreement where the old rivalries can still exist in OOC (i.e. 'Cuse still plays Georgetown, Nova, St. Johns), but this is just too big for basketball.

And far too small for Football. And not playing WVU home and home in bball is just plain weird. We can still play SHU, Nova, and St. John's OOC and those to me aren't that big of rivalries because they don't get played in football as well as the other sports. The real rivalries are with the football schools.

brista21 Wrote:

Orange Eagles Wrote:Agreed. I'd like to have an agreement where the old rivalries can still exist in OOC (i.e. 'Cuse still plays Georgetown, Nova, St. Johns), but this is just too big for basketball.

And far too small for Football. And not playing WVU home and home in bball is just plain weird. We can still play SHU, Nova, and St. John's OOC and those to me aren't that big of rivalries because they don't get played in football as well as the other sports. The real rivalries are with the football schools.

Oh for the days of the Eastern 8...Pitt, Penn St, WVU, Rutgers, Temple etc playing home and homes....it was before my time but boy did it make some sense...too bad it couldn't morph into the eastern all sports leauge

Jackson

It will sure be interesting to see how individual team profiles develop and how many end up getting bids vs how many appear to deserve a bid. At this point so many teams are closely bunched in conference play that few have sewed anything up, and only a handful are out for sure already.

We also shouldn't forget that we all have 2 extra conference games. I'ts not rocket science, but our 16 teams will go .500 in those as opposed to likely around .750-.800 if they were non-conference games. SOS should be raised collectively, but will it make up the difference?

Jackson1011 Wrote:For what its worth...Billy Packer, who has never been a BE man, said he thought we get eight if things continue as they are. If we only get seven for the second yr in a row, then the everyone in the leauge needs to take a hard look at what we're doing as a conference

I didn't hear this myself, but a poster on a WVU board said he heard Tom Lucci, a newspaper guy in NJ, saying the two sides need to seperate. Bascially the argument was that too many good bball teams are getting lost in the shuffle because of the size of the league and so few teams getting to the NCAAs

There was a time when 7 out of 9 BE teams went to the NCAAs..now we are looking at 7 out of 16?? Unacceptable in my book

BTW, the poster said that Lucci thought the football schools go to 10 if they do decide to go it alone...interesting rumor if nothing else

Jackson

Let me begin by stating that I am for either a partial hybrid or a complete split and not the current 16-team conglomeration.

And interestingly there is a thread over on the Syracuse Scout Board on this very topic about how NCAA bids may force a split. I don't see it, myself.

Personally, I'm not quite sure I am following the logic with the entire concept. Let's assume we split and go to 10.

Precisely how is 4 out of 10/11/or 12 different than 6 or 7 out of 16? Do posters here realize how frequently at least one of the super-conferences is held to 4 bids? It happens to at least one BCS conference virtually every year.

2007 - Big 12
2006 - ACC, Big 12, and Pac-10
2005 - Pac-10
2004 - Big Ten and Pac-10 (each with only 3 bids that year)
2003 - ACC (but 4 out of 9 which isn't bad), Big East (4 out of 14, really bad)
2002 - ACC (again 4 out of 9, which isn't bad)
2001 - none
2000 - ACC (3 out of 9, really bad), Pac-10
1999 - ACC (3 out of 9 really bad), Pac-10
1998 - Big 12, Pac-10

(NOTE: It hasn't happened to the SEC in over a decade - who says cheaters never win. )

The real question is, will the NCAA committee go beyond 8? or is there an invisible ceiling? The answer to that question is unknown at this time.

Frankly, the 16-team league in its short 2-year history, truly hasn't had a year yet where 9 teams clearly deserved to receive bids. Two years ago a case could be made that Cincinnati definitely deserved the bid over Air Force, but I would be hard-pressed to say they clearly deserved it over Missouri State and Creighton who were also left out in the cold.

If you want to talk obvious ceilings, it's mid-major conferences being capped at 4 as the maximum, no matter how many tourney worthy teams they may have.

Watch and see, some deserving A-10 team will get the shaft this year.

Cheers,
Neil

brista21 Wrote:And far too small for Football. And not playing WVU home and home in bball is just plain weird. We can still play SHU, Nova, and St. John's OOC and those to me aren't that big of rivalries because they don't get played in football as well as the other sports. The real rivalries are with the football schools.

Speak for yourself...but as a 'Cuse fan, the matchups with Villanova and Georgetown every year are HIGHLY anticipated. The only football team with which we have that same kind of intensity with is UConn. So for me, if a split happened, there MUST still be the rivalry games or Syracuse basketball just wouldn't be the same.

omnicarrier Wrote:Personally, I'm not quite sure I am following the logic with the entire concept. Let's assume we split and go to 10.

Precisely how is 4 out of 10/11/or 12 different than 6 or 7 out of 16? Do posters here realize how frequently at least one of the super-conferences is held to 4 bids? It happens to at least one BCS conference virtually every year.

2007 - Big 12
2006 - ACC, Big 12, and Pac-10
2005 - Pac-10
2004 - Big Ten and Pac-10 (each with only 3 bids that year)
2003 - ACC (but 4 out of 9 which isn't bad), Big East (4 out of 14, really bad)
2002 - ACC (again 4 out of 9, which isn't bad)
2001 - none
2000 - ACC (3 out of 9, really bad), Pac-10
1999 - ACC (3 out of 9 really bad), Pac-10
1998 - Big 12, Pac-10

(NOTE: It hasn't happened to the SEC in over a decade - who says cheaters never win. )

The real question is, will the NCAA committee go beyond 8? or is there an invisible ceiling? The answer to that question is unknown at this time.

Frankly, the 16-team league in its short 2-year history, truly hasn't had a year yet where 9 teams clearly deserved to receive bids. Two years ago a case could be made that Cincinnati definitely deserved the bid over Air Force, but I would be hard-pressed to say they clearly deserved it over Missouri State and Creighton who were also left out in the cold.

If you want to talk obvious ceilings, it's mid-major conferences being capped at 4 as the maximum, no matter how many tourney worthy teams they may have.

Watch and see, some deserving A-10 team will get the shaft this year.

Cheers,
Neil

Yes, but let's say there's a year when 6 out of 10 teams get in, that's 60% of the conference. Let's just say, since we've never seen it go higher, that the max number of teams to get in with the 16 team conference is 8. That's only 50% of the conference as a maximum. I never saw it as much as I do right now (and that's even including when Syracuse was left out of the tournament last year)

omnicarrier Wrote:Let me begin by stating that I am for either a partial hybrid or a complete split and not the current 16-team conglomeration.

And interestingly there is a thread over on the Syracuse Scout Board on this very topic about how NCAA bids may force a split. I don't see it, myself.

Personally, I'm not quite sure I am following the logic with the entire concept. Let's assume we split and go to 10.

Precisely how is 4 out of 10/11/or 12 different than 6 or 7 out of 16? Do posters here realize how frequently at least one of the super-conferences is held to 4 bids? It happens to at least one BCS conference virtually every year.

2007 - Big 12
2006 - ACC, Big 12, and Pac-10
2005 - Pac-10
2004 - Big Ten and Pac-10 (each with only 3 bids that year)
2003 - ACC (but 4 out of 9 which isn't bad), Big East (4 out of 14, really bad)
2002 - ACC (again 4 out of 9, which isn't bad)
2001 - none
2000 - ACC (3 out of 9, really bad), Pac-10
1999 - ACC (3 out of 9 really bad), Pac-10
1998 - Big 12, Pac-10

(NOTE: It hasn't happened to the SEC in over a decade - who says cheaters never win. )

The real question is, will the NCAA committee go beyond 8? or is there an invisible ceiling? The answer to that question is unknown at this time.

Frankly, the 16-team league in its short 2-year history, truly hasn't had a year yet where 9 teams clearly deserved to receive bids. Two years ago a case could be made that Cincinnati definitely deserved the bid over Air Force, but I would be hard-pressed to say they clearly deserved it over Missouri State and Creighton who were also left out in the cold.

If you want to talk obvious ceilings, it's mid-major conferences being capped at 4 as the maximum, no matter how many tourney worthy teams they may have.

Watch and see, some deserving A-10 team will get the shaft this year.

Cheers,
Neil

It is not just about bids, but units earned. 1 unit earned for each game appearance up to the finals. 5 units max. 125 units per year if the math works out. Even if one side is more successful in the tournament, both benefit. The upside can be tremendous and the down years (like 2006) will generally have soft landings.

2006 Units

ACC - 10
Big East - 19
Big 10 - 9
Big XII - 8
Pac 10 - 11 (1 FF)
SEC - 17 (2 FF)

2007 Units

ACC - 14
Big East - 13 (1 FF)
Big 10 - 14 (1 FF)
Big XII - 10
Pac 10 - 16 (1 FF)
SEC - 14 (1 FF)


Total for 2 year period

ACC - 24 (Avg. 2 per team)
Big East - 32 (Avg. 2 per team, 1 FF)
Big 10 - 23 (Avg. 2.09 per team, 1 FF)
Big XII - 18 (Avg. 1.5 per team)
Pac 10 - 27 (Avg. 2.7 per team, 2 FF)
SEC - 31 (Avg. 2.583 per team, 3 FF)

So over this 2 year period, one of which was a down year, each school is no worse off than an average ACC school, only slightly behind an average Big 10 school, and ahead of an average Big XII school. The SEC and Pac 10 have had their up years in 2006-2007.

That being said, I don't see this group together for the long haul.

Orange Eagles Wrote:Yes, but let's say there's a year when 6 out of 10 teams get in, that's 60% of the conference. Let's just say, since we've never seen it go higher, that the max number of teams to get in with the 16 team conference is 8. That's only 50% of the conference as a maximum. I never saw it as much as I do right now (and that's even including when Syracuse was left out of the tournament last year)

If indeed there is a max of 8, then it will be interesting to see how that will affect the football presidents decision to split or not.

But at this point in time, there is simply no clear cut evidence that there is a max of 8. Even Syracuse's snub from last year would only have given the league 7 bids instead of 6.

And this year's performance so far is not indicative of a league that is going to get more than 7 bids at maximum.

The get-out-of-jail-free card needs to be exercised by June 30, 2009. I simply don't believe there will be enough body of evidence for the football presidents to cite this theory of a max of 8 as one of the reasons for a split.

Of course there are other reasons for a complete split and or a smaller hybrid, but I just don't see this one as compelling enough to be included by the football presidents.

Cheers,
Neil