So I'm thinking about how many NCAA bids we should realistically earn this coming basketball season, and my mind keeps telling me minimum 5, but probably 6 and possibly 7. I don't think I'm being unrealistic, and I realize I'm basing my number on our conference in the pre-football days. I look at the 2014 Big East and I see similarities to the old Big East-- 2 or 3 excellent teams; 3 or 4 or 5 great, solid teams; the remainder very good, respectable teams... no horrible teams nor horrible losses OOC.

Miami (Fla) joined for the 1992 season, which brought us to 10 teams and an 18 game schedule. Prior to that year, from 1983 thru 1991, we had 9 schools in the Big East.

Our final 5 years with 9 teams included seasons:
1987: 5 NCAA's - 1 in NC, 2 in Final Four, 3 in Elite Eight.
1988: 6 NCAA's - 1 in Elite Eight.
1989: 5 NCAA's - 1 in NC, 3 in Elite Eight.
1990: 6 NCAA's - 1 in Elite Eight.
1991: 7 NCAA's - 2 in Elite Eight.

Each of our last 5 years, we had at least 55% of our teams in the NCAA's.
What did our conference do in 1991 to earn 7 spots for our 9 teams?

1991 BIG EAST STANDINGS:
y-Syracuse 12-4.
y-St John's 10-6.
y-Connecticut 9-7.
y-Seton Hall 9-7.
y-Pitt 9-7.
y-Georgetown 8-8.
n-Providence 7-9.
y-Villanova 7-9.
n-Boston College 1-15.

For starters:
-Each of the 7 NCAA teams finished no worse that 7-9 in conference.
-Only 1 team finished better than 10-6.
-Six were between 9-7 and 7-9.
-Our last place team really tanked in conference at 1-15.
-Each of the 7 NCAA teams were ranked at least 1 week.
-6 of the 7 were ranked a minimum of 5 weeks.
-5 were ranked in the Top-25 during the preseason.
-Those 5 teams remained ranked to open the Big East regular season.
-Villanova jumped in and out of the rankings in late November.
-Seton Hall popped in and out and in again starting in mid-January.

So I would think in 2014, our NCAA-possible teams will have to be at least 8-10 in-conference. A key is to be ranked in the pre-season at some point, and the key of course to that is how we perform out-of-conference.

So how did the 1991 Big East perform OOC...?
1991 BIG EAST OOC Results:
Syracuse: 13-0.
--> W vs Iowa State, Indiana, NC State, Notre Dame, Florida State.
St John's: 10-1.
--> W vs Georgia Tech, Notre Dame.
--> L vs DePaul.
Connecticut: 9-2.
--> W vs Rhode Island.
--> L vs UNC, NC State.
Seton Hall: 10-1.
--> W vs Oklahoma, Clemson, Rutgers; won Big East Tournament.
--> L vs Fordham.
Pitt: 9-3.
--> W vs West Virginia, Duquesne.
--> L vs Virginia, Hawaii, UCLA.
Georgetown: 4-3.
--> W vs Duke, Rice, Houston; Big East Tourney runner-up.
--> L vs UTEP, Ohio State, DePaul.
Providence: 9-2.
--> W vs Rhode Island.
--> L vs Arizona, Holy Cross; (Boston College).
Villanova: 7-4.
--> W vs LSU, Wake Forest, St Joe's, Auburn; Syracuse in BET.
--> L vs Temple, LaSalle, Georgia Tech, Arizona.
Boston College: 10-3.
--> W vs Memphis State, Maryland, Northwestern, Notre Dame.
--> L vs Duke, Holy Cross, UMass.

Key Take-aways:
-All of us had great (or respectable) records.
-Boston College (BE 1-15) was excellent OOC.
-Villanova finished 8th, but played an excellent OOC schedule.
-Providence finished 7-9, but had no big OOC wins.
-UConn had no big OOC wins, but had no bad loss.
-Syracuse was excellent OOC.
-Georgetown had few OOC games.
-The BE had no horrible losses, except maybe Holy Cross vs PC and BC.
-UTEP was ranked in early January, so the Hoyas didn't have a bad loss.

Thoughts:
-for 2014, the BE may match 1991 as far as regular season records...
-maybe 1 team 14-4 or 13-5, but many of us in the 8-10 thru 10-8 range...
-very balanced conference this year...
-our OOC schedules and results are of course key...
-we should call out our OOC schedules and circle the key matchups...
-St John's vs Wisconsin,
-Georgetown vs Oregon,
-Providence vs Boston College
-each of the previous 3 are scheduled for the weekend of November 8th.
-Creighton and Marquette are in a tourney together in Anaheim.
-Villanova and Xavier play in a tourney at Atlantis I think, in November.
-Providence plays Kentucky on December 1st at Barclays in Brooklyn.
-Except for PC vs Kentucky, the rest are very, very winnable games.
-I don't expect any of our teams to completely suck OOC. This year, I don't see DePaul losing to Gardner-Webb or Providence losing to Brown. If we can all avoid brain-farts like that then we'll be in great shape.

Anyway, just wanted to get this on paper. Not exactly sure what it gets us, but maybe looking at the numbers and results can be helpful in some way. Add your comments on what you think. Can't hurt!

Also, Miami (Fla) coming on the scene set us back for a few years, because at first they were horrible OOC, but occasionally managed to win games in conference ['92 at 3-6, L vs Eastern Kentucky, Howard, SMU; '93 at 1-5, L vs Texas State, Florida International, Unc-Wilmington]. Maybe I'll have to put that in another thread.

I know a lot of people are high on Kentucky. I'm not one who necessarily thinks they're anything special. I think the PC game is indeed winnable for the Friars.

(08-03-2013 12:20 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  I know a lot of people are high on Kentucky. I'm no one who necessarily thinks they're anything special. I think the PC game is indeed winnable for the Friars.

it could be one of those gotcha games that leave people shocked. Lets hope Kentucky is looking past PC to some other game they have

(08-03-2013 08:37 AM)gosports1 Wrote:  

(08-03-2013 12:20 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  I know a lot of people are high on Kentucky. I'm no one who necessarily thinks they're anything special. I think the PC game is indeed winnable for the Friars.

it could be one of those gotcha games that leave people shocked. Lets hope Kentucky is looking past PC to some other game they have

Funny, it's scheduled on a Sunday night at the same time as a Redskins-Giants game. It might get some attention because viewers might flip over to it during some of the 900 NFL commercial breaks. If it's competitive it'll give us and the conference some good press. Of course, we could lose by 40...!

Following up on this topic--
In the years that the Big East had 9 teams (16 game seasons), from 1983 thru 1991, the following happened:
- every team that finished 9-7 made the NCAAs (5 out of 5).
- for the 8-8 teams, 7 of 8 made the NCAAs (BC '84 got screwed).
- for the 7-9 teams, 3 of 6 made the NCAAs.
- none of our 6-10 teams made the NCAAs (0 out of 5).

So, back in the day in our league which has a similar composition to current day, basically if our teams finished at .500 or better then they would make the NCAAs. If our teams were 2 games under .500 in conference, then they had a 50% chance of an NCAA bid. 4 games under would send us to the NIT.

Found this interesting, but it doesn't deserve its own thread, so I'll place it here:
Since Coach K took over at Duke, he has faced a Big East team in the NCAAs 16 times.
- Duke is 8-8 in these games, but 2-6 in the last 8 (going back to 1997).
- Duke went 5-0 vs the BE in 1990, 1991 and 1992 (2 NC, 1 final), 3-8 in other years.
- In only 3 of these 16 games was Duke the lower seed. In a 4th, both were 1-seeds.
- In games vs 10+ seeds, Duke is 1-2 (W vs UConn '91, L vs BC '85, L vs PC '97).
- In the last 10 years, Duke has been bounced by a Big East team 4 times.
- In the last 10 years, Duke has 1 win vs a BE team (Seton Hall in 2004).

The list:
1985 - 3 seed - loss vs 11 Boston College.
1989 - 2 seed - win vs 2 Georgetown.
1989 - 2 seed - loss vs 3 Seton Hall.

1990 - 3 seed - win vs 6 St John's.
1990 - 3 seed - win vs 1 Connecticut.
1991 - 2 seed - win vs 11 Connecticut.
1991 - 2 seed - win vs 4 St John's.
1992 - 1 seed - win vs 4 Seton Hall.

1997 - 2 seed - loss vs 10 Providence.
1998 - 1 seed - win vs 5 Syracuse.
1999 - 1 seed - loss vs 1 Connecticut.
2004 - 1 seed - win vs 8 Seton Hall.
2004 - 1 seed - loss vs 2 Connecticut.
2008 - 2 seed - loss vs 7 West Virginia.
2009 - 2 seed - loss vs 3 Villanova.
2013 - 2 seed - loss vs 1 Louisville.

the difference with now and back in '91-

in '91- the top 6 conferences had a total of 55 teams(Big 8, ACC, BE, P10,SEC,B10). Of those 6 conferences, 30 NCAA teamss(or 24 of the 33 at large schools). Also, 46 teams not including the Big East.

now the top 6 conferences(ACC, BE, B12, P10, SEC, B10) will have a total of 75 schools, or 65 not including the Big East. (and this doesn't include the AAC which may be a mistake, we'll see long term with that)

So, a LOT more competition with the other power conferences for at large bids.

Also, the mid major confernces have kind of consolidated a bit- back in '91, had 7 confences divying up 9 at large spots. Last year, there were 5 confences divying up 11 at large spots.

All told, the conditions generally speaking aren't anywhere near as favorable as they were back then to get 7 NCAA teams.

(08-05-2013 02:27 PM)billyjack Wrote:  Following up on this topic--
In the years that the Big East had 9 teams (16 game seasons), from 1983 thru 1991, the following happened:
- every team that finished 9-7 made the NCAAs (5 out of 5).
- for the 8-8 teams, 7 of 8 made the NCAAs (BC '84 got screwed).
- for the 7-9 teams, 3 of 6 made the NCAAs.
- none of our 6-10 teams made the NCAAs (0 out of 5).

So, back in the day in our league which has a similar composition to current day, basically if our teams finished at .500 or better then they would make the NCAAs. If our teams were 2 games under .500 in conference, then they had a 50% chance of an NCAA bid. 4 games under would send us to the NIT.

the problem with this logic though is that no teams that we have right now compare at all to the top tier of the Big East in that timeframe. That hurts us, along with how much bigger the first tier nationwide is now, and how much stronger the 2nd tier nationwide is now.

(08-05-2013 01:51 PM)stever20 Wrote:  the difference with now and back in '91-

in '91- the top 6 conferences had a total of 55 teams(Big 8, ACC, BE, P10,SEC,B10). Of those 6 conferences, 30 NCAA teamss(or 24 of the 33 at large schools)....

You left out both the Southwest Conference and the Metro when you counted up the 55 teams from '91... both of these were typically multiple bid conferences and weren't mid-majors.... add those 17 teams in and you're up to 72 teams... unless you think Arkansas, Texas, Louisville, Memphis State, Florida State, etc, were mid-majors?

I'm not understanding your thought that the same number of teams consolidated into fewer conferences actually hurts us. Are you saying that the larger conferences will be more demanding when dealing with other conferences?

the SWC and Metro in '91 for instance were a distant 7/8th place conference. Their numbers very comparable to the MWC or A10 of today. Except the MWC and A10 of today got a lot more teams in than the Metro or SWC did back then.

Looknig at Sports Reference.com- they have conference strength:
1 Big 8 16.35 91 vs 1 B10 14.14 13 ad 91
2 ACC 15.84 vs 2 BE 11.81 13 ad 91
3 BE 14.61 vs 3 ACC 10.07 13 ad 91
4 P10 12.39 vs 4 P12 9.88 13 ad 91
5 SEC 11.26 vs 5 B12 9.49 13 ad 91
6 B10 10.99 vs 6 MWC 8.40 13 ad 91
7 SWC 7.99 vs 7 SEC 8.22 13 ad 91
8 Metro 7.08 vs 8 A10 6.08 13 ad 13
9 WAC 4.62 vs 9 MVC 6.07 13 ad 13
10 A10 4.51 vs 10 WCC 4.62 13 ad 13

top 7 conferences averages:
91 12.74 13 10.29
# of teams in those conferences
91 64 13 84

So a lot better teams back then. Now, weaker teams overall, but a lot more depth.

teams 8-10
91 5.40 13 5.59
# of teams in those conferences
91 27 13 35

so teams in '91 in top 10 confences 91, in '13 119. Just a LOT more depth now than there was back then.

and remember, with the confence moves-
in '15 for instance: 132 for the current top 10 confences, plus the AAC. If you remove the WCC 122.