Louisville, Marquette and maybe Cincy repping in the Sweet 16. Cuse is leaving and won't be helping after next year.

I'm not trying to be a homer but I really think Cincinnati and Louisville will be the future flagship programs of the league.

it is a lot of fun watching Cincinnati play. Probaly some of the best defense and hustle I have seen in a long time

I agree Louisville, Cincinnati, Marquette and probably Georgetown and Uconn will lead the way. Will have to see how USF does next year, and Rice has Rutgers moving in the right direction.

(03-18-2012 10:27 PM)TexanMark Wrote:  Cuse is leaving and won't be helping after next year.

The ACC will welcome the help. Their signature old guard program, Duke, bit the dust against Lehigh in the first round.

(03-18-2012 10:30 PM)Bearcat_Bounce Wrote:  I'm not trying to be a homer but I really think Cincinnati and Louisville will be the future flagship programs of the league.

UConn has been at the top of Big East BB since 1990. It's not going to suddenly become a mid-level program.

(03-18-2012 10:54 PM)UConn-SMU Wrote:  

(03-18-2012 10:30 PM)Bearcat_Bounce Wrote:  I'm not trying to be a homer but I really think Cincinnati and Louisville will be the future flagship programs of the league.

UConn has been at the top of Big East BB since 1990. It's not going to suddenly become a mid-level program.

I was speaking all sports wise (meaning primarily football and basketball). No disrespect was intended to UConn.

I'm kind of going off topic here, but it is neat to see so many different teams from the Ohio Valley area doing well.

Louisville
Kentucky
Indiana
Ohio
Ohio St
Xavier
Cincy

State of Ohio is 8-0 in the tourney.

(03-18-2012 11:26 PM)ULdave Wrote:  I'm kind of going off topic here, but it is neat to see so many different teams from the Ohio Valley area doing well.

Louisville
Kentucky
Indiana
Ohio
Ohio St
Xavier
Cincy

Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana is basketball. Along with those Purdue and WKU made the tournament too

The Big East will be fine in basketball and football will be a little more exciting. Cincinnati should just get rid of their pro sports that way the Bearcats have no other competition in town maybe besides OSU.

Louisville,Cincinnati,Marquette,Syracuse as Jackie Gleason used to say "How sweet it is! "

(03-18-2012 10:27 PM)TexanMark Wrote:  Louisville, Marquette and maybe Cincy repping in the Sweet 16. Cuse is leaving and won't be helping after next year.

I think nationally people underestimated the quality of play of the teams in the upper half of the original CUSA. It is interesting to see that 7 of those teams (UofL, Cincy, MU, USF, Memphis, SLU, USM) made the tournament this season. DePaul, Charlotte and UAB were pretty good during that period, and Cincy was a force. It was no mid-major basketball league.

Given who is staying and who is coming on board, I expect basketball to still be pretty strong in the BE. Too many schools committed to basketball excellence not to be.

(03-18-2012 10:38 PM)RUfan03 Wrote:  I agree Louisville, Cincinnati, Marquette and probably Georgetown and Uconn will lead the way. Will have to see how USF does next year, and Rice has Rutgers moving in the right direction.

I'd say going forward- don't sleep on Memphis or Temple.

UConn will be interesting when Calhoun retires. Can they maintain? Same can eventually be said by Louisville for Pitino.

I think going forward after retirement, the stability of coaches that have been at Louisville,and UConn will make both programs very attractive to stable top knotch coaching staffs in the future. Same with Syracuse.

The thing that I find with programs though- when a coach like a Calhoun retires- it's really hit and miss for the replacements. Some would say it took UCLA ages to replace Wooden. Alabama football- 25 years to replace Bear Bryant.

Louisville is going to be amazing. When Pitino retires- they'll have had 2 coaches in about 45 years. That's just amazing in this day and age.

(03-19-2012 10:02 AM)stever20 Wrote:  

(03-18-2012 10:38 PM)RUfan03 Wrote:  I agree Louisville, Cincinnati, Marquette and probably Georgetown and Uconn will lead the way. Will have to see how USF does next year, and Rice has Rutgers moving in the right direction.

I'd say going forward- don't sleep on Memphis or Temple.

UConn will be interesting when Calhoun retires. Can they maintain? Same can eventually be said by Louisville for Pitino.

Louisville has plenty of BB tradition without Pitino. We will have to sit on UConn to see how that plays out.

(03-19-2012 11:13 AM)Tigeer Wrote:  

(03-19-2012 10:02 AM)stever20 Wrote:  

(03-18-2012 10:38 PM)RUfan03 Wrote:  I agree Louisville, Cincinnati, Marquette and probably Georgetown and Uconn will lead the way. Will have to see how USF does next year, and Rice has Rutgers moving in the right direction.

I'd say going forward- don't sleep on Memphis or Temple.

UConn will be interesting when Calhoun retires. Can they maintain? Same can eventually be said by Louisville for Pitino.

Louisville has plenty of BB tradition without Pitino. We will have to sit on UConn to see how that plays out.

It's always difficult replacing a legend though. See what happened at Nebraska in football for instance- it took them 10 years to replace Tom Osborne. I think that's probably the closest parallel to Louisville basketball. Devaney and Osborne were the only 2 coaches from 1962-1997. After that- Solich and Callahan coached for 10 years before Bo Pelini came back to take over.

Villanova did go to the NCAA tournament for 7 years straight. Nova had an off year and I think they’ll better next year. With a healthy Lavin, added depth, and more experience for their frosh class St Johns will be much improved even without Moe Harkless. Georgetown and Notre Dame are solid programs; they just need to improve in the NCAA tournament. I do agree going forward Cincinnati, Louisville, and Marquette are upper tier Big East basketball teams.

(03-18-2012 10:38 PM)RUfan03 Wrote:  Rice has Rutgers moving in the right direction.

I hope so, but the jury is still out on that one. The young team excuse actually does apply to the team this year its very true. That being said, they were up and down and didn't consistently improve and had zero All-Big East or All-Big East-Rookies on the team. Hopefully, its growing pains and we're playing genuinely competitive ball in the NCAAs in the near future.