Welcome to The Holy Land of Hoops

...I was reading tweets on twitter and I swear I know who you are now. I saw some negative Big East comments and of course they were written by a Statmastersteve. The comments are written just like you. What are the chances!!! If not you have an identical twin!

billyfa wrote:...I was reading tweets on twitter and I swear I know who you are now. I saw some negative Big East comments and of course they were written by a Statmastersteve. The comments are written just like you. What are the chances!!! If not you have an identical twin!

It's me.

What Jon Rothstein said was that The Big East is the most competitive conference in college basketball this season. League has no bottom. As balanced as it's been since realignment in 13-14.

I said that it's great for regular season, but it's horrible for getting teams in the tourney/getting teams great seeds for the tourney.

Folks want to bring up the prior years. That's fine. The league IS different this year than years past. The bottom teams are a heck of a lot better than before. When the league is this balanced and competitive as this is- it hurts. Especially when it's combined with how bad the OOC was overall for the league.

stever20 wrote:I said that it's great for regular season, but it's horrible for getting teams in the tourney/getting teams great seeds for the tourney.

It's potentially horrible, but you only focus on that angle.

I think the parity and balance is really good for the league. No one is an easy out, and every game can honestly go either way. We can argue bids and seeds all day - no one knows anything until Selection Sunday. However, I think the depth of the league will immensely help our teams that do get into the tournament, regardless of seed. Our bids will inevitably be battle-tested and able to compete against anyone. Look at the NET bottom of the other major conferences:

Big 12: West Virginia (96)
Big East: Georgetown (101)
B1G: Illinois (125)
SEC: South Carolina (133)
ACC: Wake Forest (192)
PAC: California (227)
A10: George Washington (279)
AAC: Tulane (305)
MWC: Wyoming (307)
WCC: Portland (310)

Every team in the Big East has a winning record in mid-January, an accomplishment that no other major conference can claim. When you have ten teams that are all competitive enough that they can win in any given night, you have something really special.

I'm more interested in the qualifications for the title statmaster lol

GoldenWarrior11 wrote:I think the parity and balance is really good for the league. No one is an easy out, and every game can honestly go either way. We can argue bids and seeds all day - no one knows anything until Selection Sunday. However, I think the depth of the league will immensely help our teams that do get into the tournament, regardless of seed. Our bids will inevitably be battle-tested and able to compete against anyone. Look at the NET bottom of the other major conferences:

Big 12: West Virginia (96)
Big East: Georgetown (101)
B1G: Illinois (125)
SEC: South Carolina (133)
ACC: Wake Forest (192)
PAC: California (227)
A10: George Washington (279)
AAC: Tulane (305)
MWC: Wyoming (307)
WCC: Portland (310)

Every team in the Big East has a winning record in mid-January, an accomplishment that no other major conference can claim. When you have ten teams that are all competitive enough that they can win in any given night, you have something really special.

but focusing on just the 1 bottom team can be a joke...
SEC- 13/14 teams are in the top 85.
ACC- 13/15 teams are in the top 90
P12- 10/12 teams are in the top 125
AAC- 10/12 teams are in the top 127

the other thing is that with those 4 conferences- you aren't guaranteed to see the 1-2 bad teams a 2nd time. I know UCF and Cincy don't play either Tulane or ECU 2x. Houston and Temple avoid one of the 2 bad teams a 2nd time.

The problem that the depth of the league does is that it tags everyone with a lot of extra losses. So when you get to the tourney, you're in that 7-10 pit of misery. OK, maybe Villanova and Marquette avoid that. But the others? They're square in that 7-10 and having to see a team like Virginia, Tennessee, Duke, Michigan, Michigan St in the 2nd round. Good luck with that.

Also who gives a rip about winning records right now? When you have teams like DePaul and St John's scheduling like crap, that's going to happen.

stever20 wrote:

billyfa wrote:...I was reading tweets on twitter and I swear I know who you are now. I saw some negative Big East comments and of course they were written by a Statmastersteve. The comments are written just like you. What are the chances!!! If not you have an identical twin!

It's me.

What Jon Rothstein said was that The Big East is the most competitive conference in college basketball this season. League has no bottom. As balanced as it's been since realignment in 13-14.

I said that it's great for regular season, but it's horrible for getting teams in the tourney/getting teams great seeds for the tourney.

Folks want to bring up the prior years. That's fine. The league IS different this year than years past. The bottom teams are a heck of a lot better than before. When the league is this balanced and competitive as this is- it hurts. Especially when it's combined with how bad the OOC was overall for the league.

Sure, it might end up being a negative for the league this year, but you have to admit it's great long term. Remember what happened after our first year of realignment? Most those "bid thieves" ended up being Tournament teams in the following years.

Two teams that need to get going, Georgetown and DePaul, are finally starting to gain some momentum. The Johnnies just lost to DePaul. We barely beat Georgetown in a squeaker. While DePaul could end up costing us a bid, they are much closer to being a Tournament team than they've ever been. Bad for this year if they cost a team or two a bid? Sure. We'll see. Great for the future if all teams are playing well during a rebuilding year? 100%.

Wanting the bottom of the league to be abysmal is extremely short sighted. It's a great thing for the league to have this many solid teams.

Death, taxes, the sun rising in the east, and stever.

stever20 wrote:

GoldenWarrior11 wrote:I think the parity and balance is really good for the league. No one is an easy out, and every game can honestly go either way. We can argue bids and seeds all day - no one knows anything until Selection Sunday. However, I think the depth of the league will immensely help our teams that do get into the tournament, regardless of seed. Our bids will inevitably be battle-tested and able to compete against anyone. Look at the NET bottom of the other major conferences:

Big 12: West Virginia (96)
Big East: Georgetown (101)
B1G: Illinois (125)
SEC: South Carolina (133)
ACC: Wake Forest (192)
PAC: California (227)
A10: George Washington (279)
AAC: Tulane (305)
MWC: Wyoming (307)
WCC: Portland (310)

Every team in the Big East has a winning record in mid-January, an accomplishment that no other major conference can claim. When you have ten teams that are all competitive enough that they can win in any given night, you have something really special.

but focusing on just the 1 bottom team can be a joke...
SEC- 13/14 teams are in the top 85.
ACC- 13/15 teams are in the top 90
P12- 10/12 teams are in the top 125
AAC- 10/12 teams are in the top 127

the other thing is that with those 4 conferences- you aren't guaranteed to see the 1-2 bad teams a 2nd time. I know UCF and Cincy don't play either Tulane or ECU 2x. Houston and Temple avoid one of the 2 bad teams a 2nd time.

The problem that the depth of the league does is that it tags everyone with a lot of extra losses. So when you get to the tourney, you're in that 7-10 pit of misery. OK, maybe Villanova and Marquette avoid that. But the others? They're square in that 7-10 and having to see a team like Virginia, Tennessee, Duke, Michigan, Michigan St in the 2nd round. Good luck with that.

Also who gives a rip about winning records right now? When you have teams like DePaul and St John's scheduling like crap, that's going to happen.

You can spin the stats however you like; unfortunately, it looks like Seth Davis, Jon Rothstein, and Bracketville, Joe Lunardi and others view league's balance as a strength, not a weakness, like in your eyes. And winning teams get into postseason - having each of the team's with winning records is a plus. Statmasters like yourself surely know this.

Other conferences can have nights off in conference play. The B1G has four teams that are at the bottom: Illinois, Northwestern, Penn State and Rutgers. The ACC has four: Wake Forest, Clemson, Boston College and Miami. Games like that are circled because you can still win without playing your best. Marquette needed over 50 points from Markus Howard just to beat Creighton this year. No game is a gimme. Providence, who is winless in Big East play, got to 2OT against Georgetown. This will surely be the most entertaining and exciting league since reorganization (not to mentioned the BET). Only a pessimist and doomsdayer would view it otherwise.

yeah bracketville sees it as a strength...
18 Marquette
19 Villanova
28 Seton Hall
34 St John's

then
69 Butler
80 Xavier
83 Creighton
84 Georgetown
85 Providence
97 DePaul

so great the league has all 10 teams in top 100..... However, only 4 teams in tourney with 5,5,7,9 seeds. Yeah get 5 teams in the NIT(DePaul wouldn't as the NIT only has realistically about 20 spots so anyone 88 or lower is out).

It's great for the regular season. And if Butler, Xavier, Creighton did better OOC, it would be set up great for the postseason(not to mention if Georgetown and DePaul scheduled better OOC than what they have.).