(03-16-2014 06:57 PM)BruceMcF Wrote: (03-16-2014 05:02 PM)nzmorange Wrote: 2. Every good thing that you mentioned happened after the thread was started.
So the events that led up to the Big East getting four NCAA bids, the same number as The American received (and one of those bids have played their last game in The American) were quite clearly not "among the worst case scenarios" ... because in the real "worst case scenarios", the outcome would have been worse.
Instead, it was a premature declaration of the sky falling, when the sky did not, in fact, fall.
From a TV perspective, it just about was. It wasn't premature. It was factually accurate, and it remains factually accurate.
Beyond all of that, the four teams that got in were: Villanova, Creighton, Xavier, and Prov.
'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. Pointing to the number of teams in the NCAA tourney as proof that the BIG EAST tourney was a success is at best illogical.
The cons of losing a high NCAAT seed and taking a probable* ratings hit in the name of sending four teams to a tourney when they all probably would have gone anyway is anything but just about the worst case scenario for the conference. Had two top teams** played, ratings would have been strong and the tourney as a whole would have had more prestige. Had two awful teams played, somewhere between 5-6 teams would have made the tourney. Instead, basically every nationally-know team flamed out and *maybe* one extra team made the dance. That's just about the worst case scenario for the BIG EAST. In fact, I would venture to say that the only significant and undeniable good thing to break the BIG EAST's way in this tourney is the fact that McBuckets made it to the final, which, for the second time, happened after I made my initial post.***
*I say "probable" because I haven't seen the actual numbers
**In terms of following/national appeal
***And contrary to what you seem to believe, my post didn't end with "and there's absolutely no silver lining that can possibly happen as a result of future events." In fact, I even acknowledged that Creighton hadn't played yet in my initial post, thus explicitly excluding them from the scope of my statement.