Surviving in the Big East Moving Forward

[scoscox]

Knew I was forgetting someone. Yes, Anderson is a definite step up as far as coaching. Right now, though, St. John's recruiting is lagging behind a little bit. Pick that up and things really get interesting. For now, I see St. John's being competitive, but not challenging for any league titles any time soon.

[trephin]

There are some SJU fans that are negative about the recruiting, but I think Anderson is doing what he can late in recruiting. I was a fan of Nolan RIchardson and by extension Anderson. I look forward to when Anderson has a class or two picked for his style of basketball. Just as importantly, I think he will really get the program on track and lay the groundwork of solid infrastructure and restore a winning culture to enable the next coach and the one after that to succeed and exceed.

[NJRedman]

There are some SJU fans that are negative about the recruiting, but I think Anderson is doing what he can late in recruiting. I was a fan of Nolan RIchardson and by extension Anderson. I look forward to when Anderson has a class or two picked for his style of basketball. Just as importantly, I think he will really get the program on track and lay the groundwork of solid infrastructure and restore a winning culture to enable the next coach and the one after that to succeed and exceed.

Getting LJ to stay might have been the biggest recruiting get of the year in the conference. We needed him to come back badly. Anderson runs a system that a guy like LJ will really thrive in. Keeping him in Queens was a huge early win for Anderson. LJ can be DPOY in this system next year.

[Xudash]

I see it as a mix of points made by Gumby and scoscox, with a great deal of emphasis placed on coaching staffs.

Including UConn, we are blessed to have the programs we have in this conference. We are blessed to have the Fox and MSG deals. The resources are there to fuel continuing success.

It has to be about the coaching staffs. With that being the case, Villanova, hands-down, remains at the top through the mid-20’s as long as Jay Wright remains there.

This is where I become a homer. I believe I’ve already seen enough of Steele to know that he is the next guy in the progression of Xavier coaches. I believe he is going to be fantastic as a coach, having already witnessed his excellent recruiting skills. He has built a good staff already. And his wife is from Cincinnati! I see Xavier as hanging in that number 2 to number 4 spot range.

My gut reaction tells me that Patrick Ewing is going to bring Georgetown back in a very big way. From there, I see UConn sliding in to challenge at the top year in an year out.

WOJO is a bit of a wild card here, because Marquette otherwise has all of the program elements in spades.

Who knows from there. That’s with Seton Hall positioned so well for this upcoming year. And I bet the Johnnies do begin laying a solid foundation for the future.

The real beauty of it is that these attempts at ranking conference mates are for opinion and giggles in the very real respect that the conference can probably expect to average from 5 to 7 tournament invitations every year from here. Do you care if your team ends up low in the conference pecking order if it otherwise makes it to the E8 or F4. UConn knows something about that.

gtmo, please never stop posting.

[billyjack]

Gtmo i think is the only person on this board, from any BE fanbase, who opposes UConn joining us. I don't understand his obsession with UConn and the C7. I don't even think in terms of the "C7" anymore.

For years I've said only 2 teams are missed: Syracuse and UConn. I couldn't give two sh!ts about West Virginia, nor Louisville, nor Cincinnati, nor Pittsburgh, nor Boston College, nor any of those teams.

Any discussion about UConn from pre-2014 BE fans is really about calming a couple (ok, really just Gtmo) of people down in what i think is their misunderstanding about the Huskies. Right? From decades of history with them, my opinion is that UConn has an excellent, intelligent fanbase. Yes, they're public... but from there Gtmo, you're (incorrectly to me) jumping to the conclusion that they're obnoxious and drunken or something weird like some of the dimwits at Wichita State.

You also seem to think the C-7 is going to ignore or lose interest in our western teams? First of all, that's kind of a weird thought, and second i don't even understand what it means.

[gtmoBlue]

I see it as a mix of points made by Gumby and scoscox, with a great deal of emphasis placed on coaching staffs.

The real beauty of it is that these attempts at ranking conference mates are for opinion and giggles in the very real respect that the conference can probably expect to average from 5 to 7 tournament invitations every year from here. Do you care if your team ends up low in the conference pecking order if it otherwise makes it to the E8 or F4. UConn knows something about that.

gtmo, please never stop posting.

Dash. Yes I care. Conference pecking order has its' significance and importance. Important aspect of w's and l's also, which determine NCAA seeding.

Good points Billyjack but you're putting words and notions out there (in my name) which I hadn't previouly considered. Will address tomorrow afternoon. gotta go now, Mama wants to sleep.

[trephin]

Speaking of MSG, what do you do with an 11th team in creating a tournament bracket?

from the 6/27/19 announcement
http://www.bigeast.com/documents/2019/6 ... df?id=8570

Q. Val, with 11 teams now, has there been any discussion as to what the Big East tournament format might look like?

VAL ACKERMAN: I think our starting point at this point will be subject to additional conversation we'll have with Joel and his team is that we could do a triple-header on Wednesday. Instead of the two games that we've done the last few years, it would be three, where we would play the 11 up through 6. It will be those six games playing three, then the winners advancing to quarterfinal day on Thursday to play the top five in the quarterfinal games.

[GumbyDamnit!]

I see it as a mix of points made by Gumby and scoscox, with a great deal of emphasis placed on coaching staffs.

The real beauty of it is that these attempts at ranking conference mates are for opinion and giggles in the very real respect that the conference can probably expect to average from 5 to 7 tournament invitations every year from here. Do you care if your team ends up low in the conference pecking order if it otherwise makes it to the E8 or F4. UConn knows something about that.

gtmo, please never stop posting.

Dash. Yes I care. Conference pecking order has its' significance and importance. Important aspect of w's and l's also, which determine NCAA seeding.

Good points Billyjack but you're putting words and notions out there (in my name) which I hadn't previouly considered. Will address tomorrow afternoon. gotta go now, Mama wants to sleep.

Here's the disconnect I think between Git's line of thinking and the carry overs from the oBE. In the oBE is was common to finish in the middle of the pack and still make a FF. Look no further than some of UConn's runs as proof. Play the 8-9 game of the BET one week and then win a NC 3 weeks later. So in the oBE it was just accepted that the league schedule was a sick test of wills. Survive and you knew you had a shot in March. Nova wins a NC as the 4th best team in '85, in '87 PC finishes 4th makes a FF, same with Nova in '09, UConn in 2011 finishes in a 3 way tie for 9th at .500 in conference and wins a NC. Many of us spent years playing 3 Top 10 teams over the same week. So in reality conference superiority came down to March. Pitt finished top 3 a lot of years during Dixon and Howland and yet couldn't make a FF. BE history does not remember Pitt's regular season successes. It remembers UConn and Nova and G'town and Cuse and St. John's and SHU and PC and WVU and L'ville, etc. making runs to FF's and NC's.

Not trying to disrespect the Valley but with single bid years, conference success was probably pretty big. In the BE most years the conference slate was just a warm up to the real show. We're not there yet with the new conference but we can get there in time.

Also, why is UConn to the BE so important (outside of old rivalries being renewed)? 4 NC's and 5 FF's. It's that simple.

In fact 11 of the past 12 NC's have either been a BE team (4) or an ACC team (7). The ACC is the top conference without a doubt but talk about 2 conference dominance.

[gtmoBlue]

Gtmo i think is the only person on this board, from any BE fanbase, who opposes UConn joining us. I don't understand his obsession with UConn and the C7. I don't even think in terms of the "C7" anymore.

For years I've said only 2 teams are missed: Syracuse and UConn. I couldn't give two sh!ts about West Virginia, nor Louisville, nor Cincinnati, nor Pittsburgh, nor Boston College, nor any of those teams.

Any discussion about UConn from pre-2014 BE fans is really about calming a couple (ok, really just Gtmo) of people down in what i think is their misunderstanding about the Huskies. Right? From decades of history with them, my opinion is that UConn has an excellent, intelligent fanbase. Yes, they're public... but from there Gtmo, you're (incorrectly to me) jumping to the conclusion that they're obnoxious and drunken or something weird like some of the dimwits at Wichita State.

You also seem to think the C-7 is going to ignore or lose interest in our western teams? First of all, that's kind of a weird thought, and second i don't even understand what it means.

The thing is... this new iteration of the BE started/founded on 4 things: PRIVATE, small, likeminded, and Basketball 1st. It's worked well for 6 years. Adding a public school is akin to buying full coverage insurance on your house and finding out 6 years later you're not covered for flooding. Unexpected and unintended consequences for the conference.

Would I mind Syracuse or Notre Dame? No. Primarily due to the fact that they are private and meet about the same amount of criteria as UConn. My ONLY bitch is that UConn is a public school. I see the notion put forward about history and champeenships, etc, et al. Nice.

Am I concerned about competition? No, because the annual 3-8 bloodbath will sort things out as it has thus far. Whatever success by any school will be earned. Will the Western Division get forgotten? No as we are the most competitive part of the conference, to date. I like to use the C7 to make a differentiation and to make my point regarding old school vs the current configuration. Am I worried little Creighton will get left behind? No. Creighton has a long history of being an outlier, competing as the "odd school" in the mix, and succeeding against the odds. Bring it on.

Billyjack...so what's your day job? Scenario building/conspiracy theorizing for the Rand Corp? If not, you need to apply with them cause you are very good at it.

As for Xudash's pecking order. All is well and fine that 5-6 teams go dancing each year. All is fine that anyone can get hot in the dance and make a run. But I for one did not sign up to be one of the middlin' majors of the conference - to be the Illinois of the BEAST. I and I hope CU, signed on to become a leader in this new configuration of the BEAST, to develop into a major player both in conference AND nationally. Making the dance annually is not the goal not good enough. Pecking order and conference standing are still important, to me.

Good point Gumby - When we were back in the MVC standing was a key factor as we were only getting 2 bids, sometimes 3. As it was CU would steal the autobid by winning the Creighton Invitational (conf tourney) in St Louis.

We have a great thing going here in the BEast. Just want it to continue at the highest levels. gtmo

[billyjack]

Hey Gtmo,
First of all, a tip o' the hat on your opening line of "The thing is..."... genius...!

This is just my opinion: I don't see "PRIVATE" as being relevant at all. It didn't matter in 1979 and it didn't matter in 2013. It just happened that no publics made sense in 2013.

This iteration of the Big East, to me, is actually founded with these priorities:
1. great basketball.
2. great basketball.
3. great basketball.
then:
4. like-mindedness in the sense that we started as indies in the Northeast and Midwest, which prioritized hoops, and which have histories vs each other. And decided for now to stay within our footprint. I've been a broken record pointing out that, for example, Creighton and Providence played every year from like 1960 thru 1973... not to mention that Creighton had an end of season annual game vs Marquette every year, the way PC and St John's used to close out the regular season.
5. schools whose athletic department has its sh-t together, with intelligent fanbases.

These other factors are irrelevant:
a. Catholic. Thankfully Butler isn't Catholic, otherwise you may have included this as a requirement in 2013.
b. Small, whatever that means cuz St John's and DePaul have 20k students.
c. Private. I forgot or i don't understand why public-vs-private is a concern. There's a 35-year real-life example where public school membership worked great, right here in our league. Football screwed things up, not the Public factor. If non-FBS (or FBS-indy) publics like Cleveland State or Minnesota State or Towson were Gonzaga-esque hoops juggernauts in 2013, then they'd have been invited to join the BE too.

Again, what's the concern about being Public? That we're subject to the FOIA? Well, we shouldn't be cooking books or cheating or misleading anyway.

Public vs Private is almost as irrelevant as each team unifiorm colors needing to include blue, which is just a coincidence. And someone protesting the inclusion of Holy Cross cuz they're purple... i mean, c'mon.

So, a big, big question that is significant but we don't have to answer yet is whether we expand beyond our Northeast-Midwest footprint (maybe to Florida or West Coast).

Anyway, long discussion which is important and interesting, but i have to get back to my Rand Corporation cubicle. Got a phonecall coming in with the Trilateral Commission.