Is the Big East too difficult for its own good?

When the final buzzer sounded at the Dunkin Donuts Center in Providence Saturday night, another wild regular season in the Big East came to an end. The last game of the season didn’t feature two of the league’s elite teams, but there might not be anyone better than Providence College and Seton Hall to give you an idea of just how difficult the conference was this year.

If not for DePaul, the Friars would have finished at the bottom of the Big East. They ended the season having allowed more points-per-game than any team in league history. But they were also the sixth highest scoring team in America, which meant that even for a team that went 4-14 in conference play, they weren’t exactly a pushover. A poor shooting night against Providence and it would feel like you were playing Syracuse or Villanova.

Seton Hall is what Providence wishes it could be. The Pirates finished just outside the top ten nationally in scoring, played a little bit better defense, were slightly deeper and probably caught a few more breaks than the Friars this season. Bobby Gonzalez’s team finished .500 in league play and put itself on the NCAA Tournament bubble by beating all the teams worse than them and very few of the ones better than them. They were the most average team in the most exceptional league in the country.

So if a team who finished in 15th place in the conference could beat you on any given night and a 9-9 team featured the league’s third leading scorer (Jeremy Hazell) and top rebounder (Herb Pope), the teams at the top of the conference must be tailor-made for deep runs in next week’s NCAA Tournament, right?

Right?

The answer might not be as clear as it seems. Yes, Syracuse, the regular season champion, Pittsburgh, West Virginia and Villanova all have the talent to reach the Final Four. But after playing 18 games plus a conference tournament in a league where you rarely ever get a night off, the question is, will anyone have anything left in the tank?

Hours before Seton Hall defeated Providence, the top ranked Orange lost to Louisville for the second time this season. The loss wasn’t all that surprising considering it was senior day for the Cardinals and the last game ever at Freedom Hall. Syracuse also had very little left to play for. They were already guaranteed the top seed in the Big East Tournament and most pundits have penciled them in as a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

None of that stopped Wesley Johnson from playing 38 minutes in the game. The Orange’s best player was among the league’s leaders in minutes played this season despite concerns about a leg injury he suffered against Providence in earl y February. After his minutes were limited in that game and the one that followed, Johnson played at least 36 minutes in each of his team’s final seven games.

The reason for his overuse was simple: Five of those games were against teams likely heading to the NCAA Tournament; another was against UConn, one of Syracuse’s biggest rivals; and the other one was probably the final home game of his career assuming he declares for the NBA Draft after the season.

Johnson isn’t the only player in the Big East who could see the wear and tear of such a treacherous regular season take its toll at the worst possible time. The league saw more players average at least 34 minutes per game than any other conference in the country this season.

The concern will only get worse at the Big East Tournament in Madison Square Garden this week. Barring a major upset, it is conceivable that any team who survives until Thursday’s quarterfinals will be safe on Selection Sunday. That means winning the Big East Championship will take beating three tournament-bound teams in three days. It has the chance to be one of the most exciting and competitive tournaments in league history, but at what cost?

Making it to Saturday could leave teams running on empty come the NCAA tournament.

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UConn/Syracuse: Simply Timeless

Let’s take a second to reflect on everything UConn/Syracuse was not. There was no championship on the line; in fact a spot in the Big East Title game wasn’t even at stake. A loss by either school would not end anyone’s season; both actually hope to play a lot more basketball this year. And chances are, NCAA Tournament seeding wasn’t up for grabs in this one either.

Okay, now that we got that out of the way, let’s talk about how UConn and Syracuse provided one of the most incredible sporting events we’ll ever see. We’ll remember it as the longest college basketball game any of us have ever watched —the second longest in history—but it was not just the length of the contest that made this one epic. It was everything – the time, the venue, the teams, the coaches, the players and the crowd.

This was the perfect way to kick off the greatest month in sports.

The truth is, the stage was set before tip-off. This was the preeminent rivalry in the Big East meeting in primetime on ESPN inside the World’s Most Famous Arena. It featured three of the most polarizing figures in college basketball, the coaches Jim Calhoun and Jim Boeheim, as well as Syracuse’s Eric Devendorf, who will go down as one of the most-hated players in league history (think J.J. Redick except less mama’s boy and more serial rapist).

On the Huskies’ side, you had Big East co-Player of the Year Hasheem Thabeet as well as a few kids from New York City, including Kemba Walker, the freshman making just the second start of his career and A.J. Price, making one of his last. And then, of course, you had the hostile fan bases. Ask anyone who knows anything about the Big East and they’ll tell you UConn and Syracuse bring more fans to the Garden each year than anyone, including St. John’s. And they can’t stand one and other.

Now, when you combine all of that with what went down late Thursday night and into this morning, you’ve got a historic event. To put it in perspective, had Devendorf’s three at the buzzer in regulation not been waved off, the game would have been called a classic by everyone in America. The fact that it lasted nearly two more hours puts it on the shortlist of the greatest basketball games ever played.

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Random Rumblings

• If you take anything away from the World Baseball Classic, take this: It is important. It’s soooo important. And if you ever forget, just turn up the volume and all of the commentators will be sure to remind you. It took me only two innings before I became sick and tired of hearing about the excitement surrounding the Classic and how united teams were after most spent all of three days practicing together. Come on, do you really think Kevin Youkilis cares about Ryan Braun?
  
  This whole thing reminds me of women’s basketball, when the announcers spend the entire game trying to convince viewers that they’re watching a competitive product. The problem with that is we know athleticism when we see it, and it’s just not there. And unfortunately for the Classic, we can tell the difference between meaningful baseball and an exhibition event. The world’s best ball players start playing real baseball in April; this is just glorified Spring Training.
  
  
• Everyone likes to pin the blame all over Terrell Owens when his teams don’t win the Super Bowl, but there’s no denying that the teams who let him go get worse before they get better. The 2004 San Francisco 49ers won just two games and 2005 Philadelphia Eagles went 2-7 after the team banished Owens.
  
  The Cowboys will regress this season.
  
  As for T.O., well, I’m just waiting for people to find a way to blame the Buffalo snow that ruins the Bills’ passing game every year on him.
  
  
• Some people might be upset with ESPN for not airing the opening round of the Big East tournament this week, but I say it’s a blessing. As good as the conference is at the top, it’s just as bad at the bottom. I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say again: Some of these small private schools just can’t compete with major public universities.
  
  But as long as one or two stay competitive, it just gives the Seton Hall’s of the world false hope.
  
  
• And you can’t tell me that college basketball in general isn’t down when Duke, the seventh ranked team in nation, gets zero points from its bench and still keeps a game with North Carolina fairly close.
  
  
• If Pros vs. Joes wants to become a new version of American Gladiators, it needs the pros to have gimmicks. That’s why I’m fine with Pac Man Jones getting into a fight on the show. The only thing that would make the scene better would be if he “made it rain” after laying some poor guy out.
  
  
• Food for thought: When we refer to ridiculous numbers put up during the steroid era in baseball, the one guy we always pick on is Brady Anderson. But how about Barry Larkin in 1996? The guy hit 33 homeruns at age 32, which is good for about 16% of the homeruns he hit during his 19 year career.
  
  
• Here is UConn’s fatal flaw: I’m not sure they have a guy who could make a key shot down the stretch ala Rip Hamilton or Ben Gordon. The Huskies best perimeter player is A.J. Price, who almost never takes a good shot.
  
  
• I’ll close with this short rant: What’s the deal with people wearing those sweatbands on their arms all the time now? You’re supposed to grow out of this when you get cut from your high school basketball team or (if you don’t make it that far) when you stop pretending to be Bret “The Hitman” Hart. Do bartenders really need to break out the Under Armour to serve me a Sam Adams?

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Random Rumblings

• As I write this, I’m flying Jet Blue to Vegas and if you’re asking “why the hell is he blogging when he has satellite TV?” the answer is simple: My screen is broken. I’m the only guy on the plane not watching Boise State.
  
  Anyways, I’ve come to the conclusion that the guy sitting next to me meets all five of the requirements to becoming a UFC fighter.
  
  !) Shaved head with a goatee. Check
  2) Be over 200 pounds. Check
  3) Drink Budweiser. Check
  4) Be very pale. Check
  5) Have tattoos that cover your arms. Check
  
  The strange thing about this guy is his choice of music. He’s blasting his iPod (apparently UFC guys think college football is for pussies) but the only song I keep hearing is that “To the left, to the left” song. Now everyone has their quirks, but this guy is supposed to be a Bud-drinking badass, the type of guy that refers to everyone as “boss” or “chief” and he’s listening to Beyonce.
  
  You tell me who the pussy is.
  
  Then again, I’m the one with Jonas Brothers tickets tomorrow night at MGM.
  
  
• At this point, the BCS’ approval rating makes George Bush look like JFK, but one guy loving the arguments caused by those faulty computers right now has to be new Big East Commissioner John Marinatto. Because everyone is so caught up arguing who should play for the National Title, no one seems to be paying attention to the fact that Marinatto’s league (Note – he doesn’t actually take over until July) is about to send a very undeserving team to a major bowl.
  
  And believe me, only calling the Big East undeserving is like calling the Knicks only mildly interested in LeBron James. If you asked the staff of Cincinnati’s student newspaper to pick the teams to play in BCS games, they’d opt for Ball State over the Bearcats any day
  
  If you ask me, the biggest disgrace about the BCS is that contract stipulations decide who gets to play and who gets shut out of the major bowls just as much as any computer. No matter how deserving, the Big 12 is restricted from sending a third team to a BCS Bowl game because the barely mediocre Big East is guaranteed a slot.
  
  But you won’t find too many people complaining about this mess; no one has time. And that’s just how Marinatto likes it. For Big East football, no press is the best kind.
  
  
• While I’m at it, Marinatto has another issue on his hands, this time in basketball, the conference’s crown jewel.
  
  The league is expected to place at least eight teams in the NCAA tournament this season and is widely regarded as the best in America, but it also is home to Rutgers, which lost to St. Bonaventure and Lehigh in consecutive games and Providence, which is only the second best team in Rhode Island.
  
  Couple that with the miserable St. John’s program and irrelevant ones like Seton Hall and South Florida, and you start to realize that there almost as many really bad teams are there are good ones.
  
  Thankfully, the Big East won’t be judged by its weakest links.
  
  
• There is a loud drunk girl on the plane (she’s not hot) and she keeps telling her friend she needs to find a black man in Vegas. An “Obama man,” she says. I think UFC guy is going to spear her.
  
  I wonder what his fight music is.
  
  
• Stephon Marbury once said he’d like to play in Italy after his NBA career is over. Now it looks like that statement could become a reality sooner than anyone thought.
  
  That is, until Mike D’Antoni decides to place a call to the old country and get Starbury blackballed.
  
  
• I’ve never hidden the fact that UConn basketball is the one team I truly care about, so by extension, I’m a huge college basketball fan. But I have to admit, I can’t blame fans for not filling the gyms for any of these preseason tournaments. The games have been hard enough to watch on television.
  
  Every team lets the shot clock run down and then throws up a wild, low percentage shot. I think a lot of people downplayed the extended 3-point line, but it looks like it’s going to be an issue for even the best teams (see UConn).
  
  
• Well, as I might have mentioned, I’m in Vegas now and won’t be posting until Tuesday or Wednesdays. Check back then for an updated podcast and all new posts!

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Random Rumblings: Voters get it right with baseball awards

• As sure as we are to bicker about the BCS this time of the year, there is another argument guaranteed to be had every November: Should a player whose team misses the playoffs be able to receive the MVP or Cy Young Award?
  
  In other sports, this would be unimaginable. The NBA’s MVP has never failed to get his team to the playoffs and the same goes for modern professional football, but baseball just watched three of its most significant awards go to guys who spent October playing golf. Only AL MVP Dustin Pedroia led his team to the playoffs, and it could be argued that he had the worst offensive season for an MVP since Barry Larkin in 1995.
  
  The one gripe many had with this year’s awards came in the NL Cy Young race, which Tim Lincecum won despite playing on a team that considered 72 wins an overachievement. But the truth is, the voters were correct in choosing the Giants pitcher because history shows that baseball’s best players rarely lead their teams through the playoffs. In fact, no MVP or Cy Young has appeared in a World Series since Barry Bonds in 2002 and only Randy Johnson and Greg Maddux have picked up a significant award and won a World Title in the last 20 years.
  
  You might win World Series Rings as a team, but baseball is largely a one-on-one sport, so I say that a group’s performance should not hurt an individual player’s resume.
  
  
• Speaking of Lincecum, as nice of a season as he had, it should only make us appreciate what Randy Johnson did from 1999 through 2002 that much more. In the heart of the steroids era, the Big Unit averaged 20 wins and struck out at least 330 hitters for four straight seasons.
  
  
• Quick, name the only team in the preseason top 25 that hasn’t won a post season game since 2006.
  
  The answer? Second ranked Connecticut. It’s nice to see everyone back to considering the Huskies a national powerhouse, but people are jumping the gun by calling them a final four lock. This is a team that still has a lot to prove and we won’t know anything until the second semester of school when the team will look a lot different than it does now.
  
  But boy do you have to love Kemba Walker.
  
  
• I realize that my disdain for Mixed Martial Arts might be getting old. But honestly, how can the biggest star in the sport have a record of 16-9? That’s Randy Couture’s record following his loss to former pro wrestler Brock Lesnar.
  
  Football coaches get fired for performaces like that.
  
  
• Memo to Syracuse football: You know you’ve reached rock bottom when Connecticut’s coach turns you down before an offer is made.
  
  
• You won’t find anyone who thinks the Big 12 and the SEC aren’t the best college football conferences in America, but what’s strange is everyone will be shocked if the two unbeatens from those respective leagues are playing for a National Title.
  
  
• What if Stephon Marbury ends up on the Lakers and wins a title?
  
  
• The Big East Conference is the best basketball league in the country, but it’s got some of the worst teams in major college basketball at the bottom. Providence just lost to Northeastern and Seton Hall and St John’s are going to stink again.
  
  That’s three founding members on the conference and none of them would be completive in the Big Sky Conference, let alone the Big East.

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All that for the Texas Bowl

The state of New Jersey (and of course NYC) will forever remember the night Rutgers shocked Louisville. Unfortunately, they’ll also remember the failures that followed.

A devastating triple overtime loss last night in West Virginia means the Scarlet Knights will not be headed to Miami for the Orange Bowl. Instead, while U of L helps the Big East win its second straight BCS game, the Knights are off to Houston to play a bottom tier Big 12 team still to be determined.

Considering how far the Knights have come, it’s hard to label them as choke artists. But the shoe might fit. As it turned out, last night should have meant nothing. If they didn’t lose to Cincinnati, Rutgers would have punched its ticket last weekend following the Mountaineers loss to South Florida. But they did. So then they found themselves in position to win in Morgantown, up three with under four minutes to play. But they didn’t.

Now they have only themselves to blame for everything that follows.

It’s very possible that falling short of the BCS will lead to Greg Schiano taking the job at Miami. That school had a down year. Rutgers had a dream season. But it’s hard to tell the difference between the two when you look at their respective bowl games.

Say they lose in the Texas Bowl. How much different will this season be than last? You can’t keep stealing recruits from the top schools when you’re losing pre-New Year’s day post season games.

Rutgers can take solace in one thing. At least Florida won. Had the Gators lost, all the teams that needed to lose for an unbeaten Scarlet Knights team to even have a chance at playing Ohio State would have.

So hey, it could have been much worse.

On the Banks – My Two Cents (Paying homage to Rutgers season.)

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Big East hurt by Rutgers' success

Successful college football in Jersey was once a farfetched dream. After Thursday night, it’s a dreadful reality for the Big East.

Rutgers’ stunning –and that’s not saying enough– 28-25 win over Louisville all but confirms that the black sheep of BCS conferences will not send a team to the national championship game, even if the Scarlet Knights win out.

This isn’t even about the undeniable need for a playoff in college football. That’s not going to happen. It’s about the Urban Meyer’s of the world that voiced their disgust with Louisville possibly playing in the title game. It’s about all those coaches that didn’t speak out, instead using a top 25 poll to state their opinion. It’s about Jason Whitlock, who still voted the Cardinals tenth on his writer’s poll ballot even after last Thursday’s win over West Virginia.

All of them were right. The Cardinals do not deserve to play for the national championship. But if it wasn’t for last night, they would have been there Jan. 8. No one outside of a few columnists trying to be different actually believes Rutgers is BCS title game worthy. But a team that could have finished second in the country would have been.

Now Florida and Texas and USC and all of the “stronger” one loss teams can breathe easier. One of those schools will back into the title game without having to worry about some unbeaten Big East team, no matter what Rutgers’ record is.

In the long run, a strong team from the biggest media market in the world will be help the Big East thrive. The future of the league is promising.

It’s the present that's looking cloudy.

Here’s the scenario that it would take to get to Rutgers to the BCS title game – Why don’t we get drunk and blog?

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'Melo gives 3 mil to school he barely knows

Carmelo Anthony’s latest contribution to Syracuse University was a lot more than he should be expected to give.

About $3 million more.

Anthony is donating that sum of money to the school he helped lead to the 2003 NCAA championship so it can build a new practice facility. The gym will be named after him in honor of his generous gift. Maybe they should throw him an honorary degree as well.

I guess its fitting that he’d give the money to the basketball program, but I wonder if he would have made the same contribution if it was an educational facility that was in need of money. The Carmelo Anthony School of Journalism does have a nice ring to it.

Anthony’s altruism aside, one has to wonder just how much in need of money the Cuse was to have Jim Boeheim’s wife go and beg a kid who spent all of six months there for that kind of cash.

“I thought that winning the championship was enough,” Anthony said, “but it wasn’t, so I had to give back to let them know that I didn’t forget about them.”

Sounds like he got guilt tripped to me.

If You're a Contractor in Syracuse, You're in Luck – Orange 44

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Big East football roundup: What they’re sayin’

…Other than that it’s still a joke.

Rutgers 20, Pitt 10
Paul Franklin of the Asbury Park Press writes, “Another week has begun, and with that comes another week to prepare. But when you're unbeaten, ranked 16th in the country and locked in on taking care of business, all is well.”

And so Rutgers has a little swag. Weird. If you take a look at the team’s last five seasons, you might have seen this coming. In 2002, they were getting blown out at home by Buffalo and losing heartbreakers to Temple. A year later, they were beating their lowly counterparts. By 2004, they had their first breakthrough victory, a 19-14 stunner over Michigan State. Of course in good ole Rutgers fashion, they managed to lose at home to a I-AA team the following week. Last season they reached a bowl game and now you have people in Jersey finally believing they’re better than Don Bosco Prep.

Even better news the school’s fans: As long as Lamar Thomas is breathing, there’s no way a guy from Rutgers ever gets hired to coach at The U.

West Virginia 37, UConn 11
Jeff Jacobs of the Hartford Courant writes, “You want the one-sentence explanation on this one? West Virginia is better. You want another sentence? West Virginia is way better.”

If this was 2004 and the Huskies still had Dan Orlovsky, this would have been a game. Unfortunately Randy Edsall has done an awful job recruiting skill players and the defense collapsed in the second half. Edsall helped build the Connecticut program from the ground up so he’s got a ton of leeway, but its time he brings in a little more talent on offense.

Louisville 28, Syracuse 13
Brian Bennett of the Courier-Journal writes, “The Cards (7-0, 2-0 Big East Conference) have fallen behind in the first half during four of their past five games. In three of those contests -- against Miami, Cincinnati and Syracuse -- they didn't score in the first quarter and didn't produce their first touchdown until shortly before halftime”

Louisville gave Syracuse every chance they could to stay in the game and prevailed only because they have that much more athletic ability than the Orange. That won’t be the case with West Virginia. The Mountaineers are going to blow them out on Nov. 2.

Cincinnati 23, USF 6
The Cincinnati Enquirer’s Bill Koch (not the pitcher) writes, “If the University of Cincinnati football team is ever going to be a force in the Big East Conference, the Bearcats are going to have to develop an offense. But on Sunday night all they needed was their stout defense.”

The Bearcats have one of the best rush defenses in the nation and they nearly shutout a team that has a decent chance to go to a bowl game. They’ll never compete with Ohio State for the stud in state recruits but if they can just land a few second tier players on offense, they’ll become a force in the Big East.

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