2012-13 College Basketball Running Cordial Discussion

Quality stuff on the Big East.

http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/9002900/last-call-garden-party

 

Damn good read.

 

Great stuff...

Didn't Thompson not give Mullin a vote for Big East MVP one year so Ewing could get it?

Coaches could not vote for their own player, so Thompson voted for a freshman, Pearl Washington, over Chris Mullin. He votes for Mullin, Mullin wins the award outright.

 

That Seton Hall-South Florida first-round Big East game was an offensive showcase. Seton Hall won 46-42 in OT, with the score 37-all at the end of regulation.

 

George Nessman fired at San Jose State. Shocking![/bluefont]

 

This is the San Jose State athletic department saying so long, this bad news is yours.

 

On the one hand, I wonder if some of these lower-tier conferences should do away with their tournaments and just hand the bid to their regular season champ. Middle Tennessee State went 19-1 or something in the Sun Belt but now they're holding their breath for an at-large, and Norfolk State went unbeaten in the MEAC but lost in the quarterfinals today, so they're in the NIT only because of that rule change a few years ago guaranteeing that regular-season champions get in.

On the other hand, Grambling is beating Alabama A&M in the SWAC first round, and who DOESN'T want to see a winless team somehow run the table and get to the tournament?

 

They should at least do like the Horizon and give the regular season champ the home court advantage for the tournament. The lower tier conferences are far better served by sending a team with chance to pull an upset than a 20-loss team that's going to get crushed by Duke or IU.

 

Norfolk State had home city advantage because the tournament is in Norfolk, though not at their gym.

 

The thing is these conferences getting to be a part of "Championship Week" is to big a deal to send the regular season champ.

 

Except the MEAC's title game is on ESPNU. I can't imagine that gets them much if anything. Plus the fans go to the CIAA tournament and don't particularly care about the MEAC's. Between lousy attendance and the fact they almost never send their top team to the tournament (and their other good team, N.C. Central, just lost) makes me think they should just say screw it and drop their tournament. And there's probably a few others conferences that should consider it too.

 

For conferences that small, though, often it's only the championship game. So I wonder if it's makes more sense to have teams that finished 1-2 in the regular season standings compete in the conference championship game. No quarterfinals, no semifinals. One game between the top two teams, that's it.