(07-25-2018 10:12 AM)stever20 Wrote: (07-25-2018 09:50 AM)quo vadis Wrote: (07-25-2018 09:46 AM)stever20 Wrote: (07-25-2018 09:38 AM)Michael in Raleigh Wrote: Man, the Big East is flourishing. They do need their non-Villanova brethren to go deeper in the tournament, but that league is just killing it in every other way. Very impressive.
Great move by the Big 12, too. Names like Seton Hall, Providence, Xavier, and Creighton are a bigger deal than they were five years ago and should be able to draw some fans better than if this had started back then.
A few years ago, the Big East tried to get a challenge with the Pac-12, but it couldn't get off the ground because, supposedly, the two biggest brand names in Arizona and UCLA were not interested. That's their loss.
Yeah, the Big East has had a great last 3 years. Even with some bad luck in there.
I do think there's a chance there gets to be the perception that it's the big 1 and everyone else. Nova has 15 NCAA tourney wins in the last 5 years. The rest of the league has 16 wins combined. And that's with Xavier having 7 wins.
Except ... as was explained a few weeks ago, the Big East's top-to-bottom strength has been very strong, always in the top 4 of RPI and Sagarin the entire 5 years of its history.
You keep trying to denigrate the Big East, and I'll keep slapping it down, while laughing, OK?
top to bottom strength doesn't mean that much though. To casual fans, all they care about is how good your top teams are. I mean SEC last year in football wasn't good, but folks think they were because Alabama and Georgia were so great.
Top to bottom, the Big East is really good. The league is averaging over half the league is making the tournament.
The top speaks for itself. Villanova is currently the premier program in the sport, with two out of three titles, including this year's team having one of the most dominant runs in years.
As I said, the other schools need to make deeper runs, but they are still doing very well. Xavier wasn't given a #1 seed out of charity. They earned it, in part by winning the regular season Big East title over the eventual national champions.
Branding wise, sure. The Big East has no "blue blood" teams. Fair or not, Villanova would have to rattle of four or five more titles to be accepted alongside Kansas, Duke, UNC, etc.
As a conference, though, in its new form and in its old form,
I would argue that if there is such a thing as a blue blood league, the Big East is one of them with only the ACC, Big Ten, and maybe Big 12 as peers. (The SEC and Pac-12 are pretty elite more often than not but do not hold the same prestige as those leagues when it comes to hoops.)
If the Big East is going to get knocked for not having a UCLA, Kentucky, or other blue blood, there's very little the league can do about it. Gaining that kind of status takes decades to gain and decades to lose. Indiana hasn't won a title in 31 years but most still regard them as a blue blood. UCLA has won one of the past 43 national titles, none in the past 23. Conversely, UConn has won 4 titles in the past 20 years, but they aren't considered blue blood. Villanova? Two of the past 3 and 3 overall, the same number as Kansas, but they're not put in the same class.