Doc: Fresh start just what UC needs?
Dissolution from Big East shouldn't be mourned
Mar 23, 2013
Cincinnati guard Cashmere Wright (1) goes up for a shot against Creighton center Gregory Echenique (00) in the first half. Cincinnati lost to Creighton University 67-63 in an NCAA tournament basketball game at Wells Fargo Center Friday in Philadelphia. The Enquirer/ Joseph Fuqua II
Written by
Paul Daugherty
As the ashes from the first-round torchings cooled, what used to be the Big East didn’t look so hot. Even before Florida Gulf Coast – a team, not a travel brochure – beat Georgetown and blew apart further the Big East myth, the league was in decline, and not because it was losing schools hourly.
A modest question: What was so big, in recent years, about the Big East?
It’s fashionable today to mourn UC’s departure from the league. Tomorrow, the revisionist take from Bearcat fans might be, “The fresh start was good for us.’’
Of the eight Big East teams invited to the Madness, five were done after Friday night. Three lost by double digits. Three were seeded higher than their opponents. Georgetown lost by 10 Florida Gulf Coast. This suggests the league was overrated, a not unfamiliar notion in recent years.
There is a tendency in the Northeast to think that only the Northeast matters. That provincialism extends from Boston, through New York and Philadelphia, and down to D.C. It shrouds all things sporting. If we are not overdosing on the force-feed of Yankees-Red Sox, we are looking live at Sal Paolantonio, from Jets camp, chronicling Tim Tebow’s every genuflection.
The media is thick in the Northeast. So is the hype.
This sort of inward thinking extended to the Big East. Once, it was a great league. The 1980s of Ewing and Mourning, Mullin and Massimino, were big times for what was then the purest basketball conference in history. Ditto the 90s, and into the turn of the century. The league always got more than its share of great players from the East Coast basketball meccas.
College basketball is about coaches. The Big East had them, too: Thompson and Carnesecca, Pitino and Boeheim and Calhoun. Colorful characters, guiding great players.
Now?
Even before the Big East started unspooling, it wasn’t what it used to be. The league was always known for its physical style. In recent times, that way of playing had evolved into 40-minute alley fights, sanctioned by the referees. Coaches called it “great defense.’’ Some of us called it “unwatchable.’’
It’s fashionable today to mourn UC’s departure from the league. Tomorrow, the revisionist take from Bearcat fans might be, “The fresh start was good for us.’’ / The Enquirer/Joseph Fuqua II
Watching Big East basketball was like taking in two hours of mixed martial arts on Spike TV. Every game had the potential to be ugly. Even Mick Cronin, a staunch worshipper at the Big East altar, called it “football.’’
Basketball wasn’t meant to be football.
On Wednesday in Dayton, I watched La Salle beat Boise State, in a beautiful exhibition of team hoops. Part raw athleticism and part ballet, the Explorers' win was a tribute to what the game can be, when it’s not being played like a tug of war. They repeated the show Friday, against Kansas State.
On Friday in Philly, I watched Creighton beat UC in similar fashion. Good ball movement, smart shot selection, deadly free-throw accuracy. UC worked mightily to find good shots, only to see all its hard work undone by the Bluejays’ ability to create open spaces and make open shots.
For every example of “great defense’’ cited by Cronin this winter, I saw two open shots, missed. Shooting, and offense in general, has not been highly prized in the Big East lately. Elbows and shoulders have.
In their new league, whatever it’s called, maybe the Bearcats get to breathe a little. Cronin finds some shooters. His offense takes off the shoulder pads. Basketball in Clifton becomes fun to watch again.
Was the Big East still a good league in its last gasp this winter? Obviously. Was it superior to, say, the Mountain West? Was it that much better than even the Atlantic 10, which as of Saturday morning had five schools still standing?
In recent years, its reputation had exceeded its performance. Its style of play became tortuous on the eyeballs. Its coaches, save a stray Pitino or two, were no longer glamour guys The face of the league looked more like Jim Boeheim. Scowling and whiny.
The league did well by UC. UC did well by the league. Its dissolution shouldn’t be mourned. It had run its course.
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20130...RONTPAGE|p