(03-17-2014 12:26 AM)darkdragon99 Wrote:  Providence vs Creighton in the championship. 2 teams who have no history playing each other and sorry but as a neutral and long time Big East fan I couldnt get excited about it at all. Providence, RI, and Omaha, NE are worlds apart and here they are in the same conference just because they are both catholic. Sorry but I cant wrap my head around it.

Missed out on a great game. One team playing to get into the tourney (apparently would not have made the tourney had they lost) against a newcomer with a national player of the year playing in MSG called by Gus Johnson in a close game and electric atmosphere.

(03-17-2014 08:30 AM)Jet915 Wrote:  

(03-17-2014 12:26 AM)darkdragon99 Wrote:  Providence vs Creighton in the championship. 2 teams who have no history playing each other and sorry but as a neutral and long time Big East fan I couldnt get excited about it at all. Providence, RI, and Omaha, NE are worlds apart and here they are in the same conference just because they are both catholic. Sorry but I cant wrap my head around it.

Missed out on a great game. One team playing to get into the tourney (apparently would not have made the tourney had they lost) against a newcomer with a national player of the year playing in MSG called by Gus Johnson in a close game and electric atmosphere.

Agree Jet, the BET was great.
And as we've written here a million times, Providence and Creighton had played every year in the 60's and early 70's. The two of our schools have a historic bond.

(03-16-2014 07:56 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  'Nova and Creighton were NCAA-bound from the regular season, and there's a very, very good chance that so were at least one of Xavier and Prov., if not both.

So what you are saying here is that the likelihood of the actual worst case or near worst scenarios really was not that high, so people were free to hyperventilate and over-dramatize events that really were nowhere near the worst case scenario.

The marketing challenge facing the Big East is straightforward ... they have to continue being seen and acknowledged as on par or superior to any one of the P5 conferences. Because of the number of alumni and t-shirt fans involved, the sports press cannot relegate any of the P5 conferences to "mid-major" status, even if the bottom half of their table stink up the joint, so have to confer "power" status to a conference if denying it implies that one of the P5 are not a "power" BBall conference either.

The Big East could, in fact, have failed that test as a result of the tournament, since a "two bid conference" would have easily allowed the line to be put under the SEC as a "three bid conference", and there the Big East would have been easily classed in with the MWC and WCC, as the protective belt between the Power Conferences and the one-bid conferences.

So:

(1) The worst outcome clearly would have been X playing themselves onto the outside of the bubble, none of the three teams on the bubble playing themselves into the tournament, and Nova and Creighton spilling a seed or two by stinking up the tournament.

(2) The second worst outcome would have been three bids as a result of the outcome of the tournament.

The Championship tournaments are the opening acts for the Big Show, and as such the fact that plenty of people turned out to watch the Big East's version. The overwrought reaction to the actual outcome of the early play in the tournament involved parts of the story that will have been largely forgotten by April. Those events turned out to do no lasting damage of any sort.

Now, if the Big East had come out of the tournament with two bids, they would have been a "two bid league" all next season. While the worst and second worst outcomes were unlikely, what that really says is that the Big East is not as vulnerable to collapse as some people try to portray.

(03-17-2014 10:34 AM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(03-16-2014 07:56 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  'Nova and Creighton were NCAA-bound from the regular season, and there's a very, very good chance that so were at least one of Xavier and Prov., if not both.

So what you are saying here is that the likelihood of the actual worst case or near worst scenarios really was not that high, so people were free to hyperventilate and over-dramatize events that really were nowhere near the worst case scenario.

The marketing challenge facing the Big East is straightforward ... they have to continue being seen and acknowledged as on par or superior to any one of the P5 conferences. Because of the number of alumni and t-shirt fans involved, the sports press cannot relegate any of the P5 conferences to "mid-major" status, even if the bottom half of their table stink up the joint, so have to confer "power" status to a conference if denying it implies that one of the P5 are not a "power" BBall conference either.

The Big East could, in fact, have failed that test as a result of the tournament, since a "two bid conference" would have easily allowed the line to be put under the SEC as a "three bid conference", and there the Big East would have been easily classed in with the MWC and WCC, as the protective belt between the Power Conferences and the one-bid conferences.

So:

(1) The worst outcome clearly would have been X playing themselves onto the outside of the bubble, none of the three teams on the bubble playing themselves into the tournament, and Nova and Creighton spilling a seed or two by stinking up the tournament.

(2) The second worst outcome would have been three bids as a result of the outcome of the tournament.

The Championship tournaments are the opening acts for the Big Show, and as such the fact that plenty of people turned out to watch the Big East's version. The overwrought reaction to the actual outcome of the early play in the tournament involved parts of the story that will have been largely forgotten by April. Those events turned out to do no lasting damage of any sort.

Now, if the Big East had come out of the tournament with two bids, they would have been a "two bid league" all next season. While the worst and second worst outcomes were unlikely, what that really says is that the Big East is not as vulnerable to collapse as some people try to portray.

No. You're describing events well beyond the scope of the conference tourney. Honestly if you're going to get THAT literal, we're both wrong. The absolute worst thing that could have happened to the conference would have been World War III breaking out in the middle of the tourney and the complete annihilation of the human race. Compared to that everything, even in your "worst case scenario," looks pretty good.

However, keeping things inside the scope of my comment (i.e. inside the scope of the tourney), virtually every name team going down for no real gain is just about the worst case scenario. As of the time of my post, every big-time team had gone down, save the two that I mentioned as either guaranteed to advance (the winner of X-Marq) and the one that still had a chance (Creighton). After my post, Creighton advanced, as I said that they might, and X lot their next game. The end result of the tourney was the same 4 teams making the dance that probably would have made the dance anyway, only the conference's lone realistic hope of winning a NC could very well have hurt their chances by falling to a 2 seed, whereas they might have otherwise been a 1 seed.

Bu back to your comment. The part that wasn't irrelevant is largely a gross exaggeration that straddles the line of being entirely and completely wrong. Your 2 bid scenario is bogus as that was never a realistic possibility, as is likely the case with your 3 seed scenario. Furthermore, your ratings argument is flat out wrong. Arguing that the ratings would not have been any better if the final game was a classic Big East 1980's style Villanova v. Georgetown slugfest is almost ridiculous as your dismissal of ratings mattering because "everyone will have forgotten by April."

There is a 0% chance that Fox would have forgotten and there is a 0% chance that anyone who bought advertising space will have forgotten.

(03-16-2014 09:11 PM)gosports1 Wrote:  

(03-16-2014 04:41 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  

(03-14-2014 06:46 PM)gosports1 Wrote:  

(03-14-2014 01:30 AM)nzmorange Wrote:  

(03-13-2014 09:37 PM)gosports1 Wrote:  yes sure is the worse case scenario when the 2nd 3rd and 4th seeds are all still alive...
maybe next year the 5th and 7th seeds can play in the championship game since they may have "historic" programs...

A Duke v. Wake ACCCG in football would be horrible for the Atlantic Coast Conference, even if those teams did field the best teams in the conference. Don't let your absolute blindness get in the way of the fact that it's better for the conference when teams with fan support/the hope of fan support win. In other words, don't bite the hand that feeds you. However, it's almost poetic/cliché that a Provence fan doesn't understand that point...

at least providence beat BC this year.
i understand that

Do you mean like this?
http://espn.go.com/ncb/recap?gameId=400502790

And while we're on the topic of common opponents, how did the 'Nova games go for you? We beat them by 16.

why so angry? im sure having a team like BC handing syracuse its first loss, must have really stung...

I'm sure getting decimated by Nova to the tune of 33 points stung, too...
...and losing the revenge game probably didn't feel good, either.

Also, for the record, if I was angry, I would have brought up the Friar's record against the Orange (or the last time we played).

(03-17-2014 06:27 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  

(03-16-2014 09:11 PM)gosports1 Wrote:  

(03-16-2014 04:41 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  

(03-14-2014 06:46 PM)gosports1 Wrote:  

(03-14-2014 01:30 AM)nzmorange Wrote:  A Duke v. Wake ACCCG in football would be horrible for the Atlantic Coast Conference, even if those teams did field the best teams in the conference. Don't let your absolute blindness get in the way of the fact that it's better for the conference when teams with fan support/the hope of fan support win. In other words, don't bite the hand that feeds you. However, it's almost poetic/cliché that a Provence fan doesn't understand that point...

at least providence beat BC this year.
i understand that

Do you mean like this?
http://espn.go.com/ncb/recap?gameId=400502790

And while we're on the topic of common opponents, how did the 'Nova games go for you? We beat them by 16.

why so angry? im sure having a team like BC handing syracuse its first loss, must have really stung...

I'm sure getting decimated by Nova to the tune of 33 points stung, too...
...and losing the revenge game probably didn't feel good, either.

Also, for the record, if I was angry, I would have brought up the Friar's record against the Orange (or the last time we played).

No one expected PC to beat Villanova, Everyone expected Cuse to beat BC. id be the 1st to admit how much syracuse has dominated PC over the years. Not even close. I was busting your balls because you took an unprovoked shot about "a providence fan not being able to understand" or some such nonsense.
You also attempted to provoke people by your OP about worse case scenarios. Why bother with a conference you have no ties to anymore?
I suspect had the so called "names" of the BE made it to semifinals that you(or some one like you) would post about how the doomed the BE is, because "depaul, seton hall and providence can t even win in a watered down BE" and that Villanova Georgetown and St johns will rule etc etc.
Just my 2 cents

(03-17-2014 08:19 PM)gosports1 Wrote:  

(03-17-2014 06:27 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  

(03-16-2014 09:11 PM)gosports1 Wrote:  

(03-16-2014 04:41 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  

(03-14-2014 06:46 PM)gosports1 Wrote:  at least providence beat BC this year.
i understand that

Do you mean like this?
http://espn.go.com/ncb/recap?gameId=400502790

And while we're on the topic of common opponents, how did the 'Nova games go for you? We beat them by 16.

why so angry? im sure having a team like BC handing syracuse its first loss, must have really stung...

I'm sure getting decimated by Nova to the tune of 33 points stung, too...
...and losing the revenge game probably didn't feel good, either.

Also, for the record, if I was angry, I would have brought up the Friar's record against the Orange (or the last time we played).

No one expected PC to beat Villanova, Everyone expected Cuse to beat BC. id be the 1st to admit how much syracuse has dominated PC over the years. Not even close. I was busting your balls because you took an unprovoked shot about "a providence fan not being able to understand" or some such nonsense.
You also attempted to provoke people by your OP about worse case scenarios. Why bother with a conference you have no ties to anymore?
I suspect had the so called "names" of the BE made it to semifinals that you(or some one like you) would post about how the doomed the BE is, because "depaul, seton hall and providence can t even win in a watered down BE" and that Villanova Georgetown and St johns will rule etc etc.
Just my 2 cents

1. You seem ridiculously over-sensitive. I didn't take a shot at the BIG EAST, and I didn't try to provoke anything but conversation. Nowhere in any of my posts did I slight the BIG EAST in any way, shape or form. I simply pointed out something that I felt was a fact, and had virtually nothing to do with the overall viability of the conference. Notice how I responded to the second poster who felt that the BIG EAST was doomed to fail by saying "IF the BIG EAST fails..." The key word of that is the "if," which I put in caps and underlined.

Heck, I pointed out that the conference could still reverse it's fortunes in the NCAA tourney. And, while we're on the topic, I even ended my initial post with something along the lines of "maybe next year...," signifying that I genuinely hope to see two Big East powers slugging it out in the championship game like old times. If you're still not convinced, "GU, VU, STJ, SH, Prov., are all great rivalries, and DePaul, Marquette, Creighton, and Butler all have the potential to create an interesting group of western rivals who have eastern ties" is an except of my second post. How in the world do you equate that with trying to provoke people?

2.I care about the BIG EAST because, although SU is no longer in the conference, Syracuse played an instrumental role in building it (even if this incarnation is technically the spiritual successor to the conference that we helped build, as opposed to the actual conference). It was once said that nowhere did the BIG EAST drum beat louder and clearer than Syracuse's campus, and that is absolutely true. Notice that, unlike Rutgers, Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Boston College, Miami, and Virginia Tech, Syracuse has never been involved in litigation with the conference. Like 99.9% of SU fans, the BIG EAST will always have a special place in my heart. When I went to Syracuse, we held up the banner against those who felt that small privates like Georgetown and Villanova couldn't compete with the juggernauts of the ACC (i.e. UNC), and we held up the banner against those who felt that the northeast was a had been in the world of college football. The BIG EAST was as close to a true northern conference as I will ever get, so no, I did not trash it's spiritual successor, nor will I ever. I merely pointed out that things weren't going well. There's a HUGE difference. If you read my posts, you will notice that I said the same thing about the ACC after SU and UNC dropped, and the ACC is now my "home" conference.

3. My comment was a lighthearted jab at PC highlighting the friction between virtually any BIG EAST "classic" fan and PC for obvious reasons. I suppose that I could have said "you're missing the forest by focusing on the trees," in that you seemed to be focusing on the details of Prov's gain at the expense of the conference's greater loss.

(03-17-2014 10:34 AM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(03-16-2014 07:56 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  'Nova and Creighton were NCAA-bound from the regular season, and there's a very, very good chance that so were at least one of Xavier and Prov., if not both.

So what you are saying here is that the likelihood of the actual worst case or near worst scenarios really was not that high, so people were free to hyperventilate and over-dramatize events that really were nowhere near the worst case scenario.

The marketing challenge facing the Big East is straightforward ... they have to continue being seen and acknowledged as on par or superior to any one of the P5 conferences. Because of the number of alumni and t-shirt fans involved, the sports press cannot relegate any of the P5 conferences to "mid-major" status, even if the bottom half of their table stink up the joint, so have to confer "power" status to a conference if denying it implies that one of the P5 are not a "power" BBall conference either.

The Big East could, in fact, have failed that test as a result of the tournament, since a "two bid conference" would have easily allowed the line to be put under the SEC as a "three bid conference", and there the Big East would have been easily classed in with the MWC and WCC, as the protective belt between the Power Conferences and the one-bid conferences.

So:

(1) The worst outcome clearly would have been X playing themselves onto the outside of the bubble, none of the three teams on the bubble playing themselves into the tournament, and Nova and Creighton spilling a seed or two by stinking up the tournament.

(2) The second worst outcome would have been three bids as a result of the outcome of the tournament.

The Championship tournaments are the opening acts for the Big Show, and as such the fact that plenty of people turned out to watch the Big East's version. The overwrought reaction to the actual outcome of the early play in the tournament involved parts of the story that will have been largely forgotten by April. Those events turned out to do no lasting damage of any sort.

Now, if the Big East had come out of the tournament with two bids, they would have been a "two bid league" all next season. While the worst and second worst outcomes were unlikely, what that really says is that the Big East is not as vulnerable to collapse as some people try to portray.

I, for one, am glad to see the BE get its four bids. They are well deserved. Now it needs to follow that up with some tournament wins. "Power" conferences should pick up one tournament share +/- per conference member. 4 bids gets 4 shares. Each tournament win will add another.

What I saw of the Big East Tournament was the same Garden magic... made for TV, you see the highlighted floor and the dark arena makes it hard to tell what kind of crowd is there. The problem with this year's tourney is so few saw it - it's ratings were pathetic. Providence became the unsuspecting champion, snagged the autobid most thought was going to 'Nova or Creighton. That bumped the number of Big East entries up as Xavier was likely an at-large too, but they were quickly bounced in the play-in game already. Worst case wasn't the play of schools in the BE Tourney... worst case is bad BE Tourney ratings coupled with quick exit from the NCAA Tourney. One down, three more need to perform - or people will talk!

(03-19-2014 10:22 AM)IceJus10 Wrote:  What I saw of the Big East Tournament was the same Garden magic... made for TV, you see the highlighted floor and the dark arena makes it hard to tell what kind of crowd is there. The problem with this year's tourney is so few saw it - it's ratings were pathetic.

Every new cable channel requires time to build its audience. It requires content ... which the first year of the new Big East tournament delivered ... but it also requires time. Its inconvenient for the internet, where a year or two is forever, but it will certainly take a year or two to learn whether this year's rating are teething pains or a permanently low ceiling.

Since this year's ratings for the Big East ~ or the Pac12, for that matter ~ can't tell us what kind of growth path the ratings are on, any argument about long term success premised on those ratings are obviously jumping to conclusions.