NCAA tournament 2011 — running thread

I'll be really surprised if this meltdown doesn't leave a longer lasting mark than that. As a guy who was skeptical all along about the Big East ravings, even I never ever imagined they'd crash and burn this bad.

And this is a case where I think the ESPN crew deserves some scrutiny. As I recall, at the beginning of the year the widespread view was that the Big 10 was the best conference on average, with the Big East closely behind, and that remained the prevailing view until the end of the non-conference season. But somewhere around mid-January the ESPN folks went on a Big East frenzy, starting pimping the conference constantly, endlessy arguing the talking point about why they deserved an unprecedented 11 bids to the NCAA tournament, and it was just a matter of time before the rest of the world began buying into the hype.

But gawdamn was that emperor ever exposed as a naked fucking bastard these last four days.

 

There is a strong case to be made against Marquette, whose best OOC win came against Green Bay and who lost by 25 in the conference tourney. But then Marquette can give the same neener-neener that VCU can.

What a team did in the tournament and whether it belonged there are really two separate arguments that should come together only in the coach's pregame pep talk.

 

Wait, ESPN shamelessly pimped an East Coast-based conference? Unpossible!

 

Under the current rules, I'd say all had an argument to be in, but they should not have raised a fuss if Marquette, Nova or Georgetown were left out.

I think Alabama gets a bad rap for being in the SEC West. I think they were 5-3 against the SEC East, which sent five of its six members to the tournament and has two teams in the Sweet 16. So it's not like Bama built up SEC wins against the West, which was awful.

Having said all that, I think they should emphasize conference play a bit more to increase the urgency of conference games late in seasons. Add drama.

 

How many times do you really need to pump your hand into the air? I'm willing to bet it's not the first time he's called a five-second violation and that his mechanic has never been what he used today.

 

Actually, Marquette beat two mid-major conference champions (Bucknell and UW-Milwaukee, the latter of which was technically a road game) in the OOC. Not great wins, but they also took Duke, Gonzaga, Vanderbilt and Wisconsin to the final possessions.

Marquette's worst loss all season was at Seton Hall, which finished around the 100 line on the RPI.

They deserved to get in regardless of what they did this past week.

And saying that a team has to be above .500 in conference play in order to get an at-large spot is also a little ridiculous. The Big East probably wasn't as good as people made it out to be during the regular season, but it still was a tougher grind than any other conference.

The conference's problem is that it had no dominant team. They had some very good teams (Pitt, Louisville, Notre Dame, Syracuse), some good teams that hit their stride at certain times (Connecticut, Marquette, St. John's, Cincinnati, West Virginia) and some teams that just hit a wall at the end of the season (Villanova, Georgetown).

There's no Ohio State, Kansas or even a Duke in the bunch. But it was deeper than any conference in the nation. And I don't think that can be argued.

 

This year, I think a 9-9 record in the Big East is the same as a 10-6 record in the Big 12 or Big Ten. Next year that may be different if the Big Ten has a whole bunch of good teams and the Big East has one dominant team, two really good teams, and a bunch of mediocre teams.

There were only two teams in the Big East that had less than six conference losses. To just arbitrarily point at a .500 record as the cutoff for being worthy of the postseason is doing the tournament an injustice.

 

I see no downside to placing more emphasis on various parts of the regular season, particularly the conference season. As it is, so long as you win the right games in November and December, you can enter late February with a mediocre conference record and with little drama outside of seeding for a lot of teams (and the drama of whether your team will finally start playing decent basketball in the tournament).

I do think there is a difference between 9-9 in the Big East and, say, 11-5 in the SEC West. Alabama, which I thought should have been in (but am not outraged that they did not get in) had far different levels of success achieving their conference goal.

 

Over the last 20 years or so, KU has been a feast-or-famine NCAA team. For the most part as a high seed, they either reach the Final Four, or lose a game that seeding dictates they never should have lost.

Four times in this period, they have had a top seed and failed to reach even the Elite Eight. But they also have five Final Fours and one national title.

 

Nonsense. I completely disagree with these statements.

The Big 10 was a tougher grind overall and is deeper on average, in large part because it doesn't have the weak links the Big East suffers from (which go conspicously unmentioned when Bilas and the rest of the ESPN crew are spouting their Big East talking points).

Rarely mentioned about the Big East is that the bottom tier of that conference--Depaul, South Florida, Providence, Seton Hall, Rutgers--is pretty damn PATHETIC by major conference standards. Meanwhile, let's compare that pitiful fivesome to the four bottom-rung Big 10 teams that failed to make the tournament:

When the non-conference season ended, Minnesota was 13-1 and a TOP 10 TEAM that had convincingly beaten the likes of North Carolina and Big East power West Virginia. It was only when the Big 10 conference season began and Minny had to begin playing fellow Big 10 teams night in night out that Minnesota started losing.

When the non-conference season ended, Northwestern was 11-1, a TOP 25 TEAM, that clearly appeared destined for the NCAA tournament, it wasn't until they had to play fellow Big 10 teams night in night out that Northwestern began losing.

Hell, even Big 10 doormat IU was 11-4 and looking vastly improved until the conference season began. And Iowa improved dramatically and was knocking off the likes of Purdue by season's end.

The fact is the Big 10 was CLEARLY better on average from top to bottom. The Big 10's top (Ohio State, Wisconsin, Purdue) was plainly better than the Big East's top (Pitt, Syracuse, ND), and the Big 10's bottom (Minnesota, Northwestern, Indiana, Iowa) was CLEARLY and by far better than the Big East's bottom (Depaul, South Florida, Providence, Seton Hall, Rutgers).

The reason you didn't hear about this? Hmm, well I'm thinking the collective ESPN hard-on for pimping all things Big East that seemed to begin mid-january and accelerate exponentially each week thereafter might have had something to do with it. Unfortunately for ESPN, there's this thing called a post-season tournament where their anointed ones have to face actual non-conference opponents and back up the hype .... and good gawd have they ever failed miserably the past four days.

 

Regional Fanboy War!