(03-18-2013 07:23 PM)vabearcat Wrote: Folks, the Big East (C&) is not being "strengthened. It is losing or has lost UCONN, Syracuse, Pitt, WVU, Louisville, Cincinnati and Notre Dame. The BEast that was the Big East. A cupboard of Seton Halls, Creightons, DePaul's and Xaviers is not going to replace the night-in, night-out war that was the real Big East.
#1 - If that's directed at my comment about "strengthening an already strong basketball league!" I hope you realize that was a tongue-in-cheek comment about how ESPN portrays properties they own; and ignores properties they do not (which was the whole premise of this thread).
#2 - Yeah, it is "weaker" because there's eight fewer schools. But really, the fact that you had so many good teams in the Big East probably worked to their detriment over the last few years.
Cincinnati, DePaul, Providence, Seton Hall, and Nova all saw their NCAA appearance frequency go down when the Big East got huge.
Generally speaking, the top half of a power conference is in play for NCAA bids, up to 60% in a good year. (See also my 12 vs 10 tirades).
So when more than 60% of your conference are programs capable of getting NCAA bids in a given year, someone looks worse record/RPI wise than they actually are.
(03-18-2013 07:50 PM)NJRedMan Wrote: You do know that Creighton is the MVC champs right?
Also Cuse, Pitt, WVU, ND, Rutgers and UofL were leaving. They were already gone. So either we can stay and see them replaced with Tulane, SMU, Houston, UCF, Memphis and Temple OR we can leave and add 5 of the best mid-majors in the country to form a power BBall conference where their interests would be met. They were the only value left in the Big East.
Yeah, the Big East was taking a huge hit no matter what. Honestly, it would be slightly hypocritical of me to suggest that the top-half of the new Big East wouldn't have been NCAA bids if they stayed together. It might have worked out better for the C7:
Replacing #1, #4, #5, #5, #12 in the league with Memphis, Temple, UCF, Houston, Tulane and SMU would bump:
Nova from 7th to 5th, Providence from 9th to 8th, St. John's from 11th to 9th, Seton Hall from 13th to 10th, and DePaul from last to ahead of Tulane, SMU and Houston.
But the reason for the split wasn't because of NCAA bids, or basketball. It was about shaping their own destiny rather than being along for the ride. Adding schools like Tulane, UCF and SMU may have helped their conference win totals, but the C7 didn't have a say in the decision and didn't have their values being considered with those additions.
The No. 1 team in the country playing a road conference game shouldn't go to a building that isn't 100% full, and shouldn't go into a building that's only got 3,200 seats, and definitely shouldn't do both at the same time. And that happened repeatedly to Memphis in C-USA when they visited Tulane.