(03-15-2013 01:09 PM)stever20 Wrote: I think like it or not, it is the last Big East tourney of this version of the conference. I think part of the reason why folks are viewing it like the last is the fact that we've not performed in the tourney. Only 2/13 champions since 2000 entering this year.
If people are viewing it this way, they're just being foolish. These things tend to run in cycles. The C7 have won 13 Big East tournaments in 34 years. They've won their share.
By the same logic that anyone might write off the C7, UConn should have been written off in the '80's because they didn't win a thing in the conference's first decade. And even after they won their first conference tournament in 1990, it was another 6 years before they won their 2nd. So, in their first 16 years of conference competition, UConn had won only 1 tournament. Just couldn't compete, right?
Pitt was even worse. They were in the conference for 20 years without winning a single tournament. It's only within the past decade that they've been able to win a couple. Miami was in the conference for 12 years without winning anything and was just as ineffective in the ACC until this year.
The fact is that since 2002, the conference tournament has been dominated by 4 schools - Louisville, UConn, Pitt, and Syracuse, who have all won multiple tournaments and who have combined for 10 of the conference's 12 tournament titles in that period. Georgetown & West Virginia won the other two.
Everyone else was unsuccessful by comparison - C7 or otherwise. We can take any other combination of schools and show the same results as the C7. How about the football 7 for example? USF, Cincinnati, Notre Dame, Miami, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, and Boston College combined to win 1 tournament in that period just like the C7.
In the 1991-2000 decade, the C7 won half the tournaments. They won 8 tournaments in 1980-90. Sometimes one group dominates, sometimes another.
Every conference has periods when a few teams dominate. In a 16 team conference, when 4 teams dominate the tournament, the other 12 are all playing second fiddle to them whether they're C7 or otherwise. Same thing happened from 1990-2001. UConn, Boston College, and Seton Hall all won multiple tournaments, combining for 8 titles in 12 years. St. John's, Providence, Syracuse, & Villanova each won singletons. Everyone else was shut out.
Finally, tournament titles are only one indicator of success. And probably not the best one since it only shows who got hot for a few days. Since the conference was reorganized in 2005-06, the C7 have combined for regular season titles (outright or shared) in 4 of the 8 years. That's a much better rate of success than in the tournament. During that same period, the C7 has gotten 2 teams to the Final Four while the 9 other members have gotten 3 teams to the Final Four. Again, pretty similar.
The C7 have been winning their share. They've just hit a dry period in the tournament as happens in every conference.
/
The New Big East is a Better Big East
