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So Far, Big East Better Than Expected
Posted Nov 24, 2009 4:50PM By David Steele (RSS feed)
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Jamie Dixon smiled when he heard that at about the same time his Pittsburgh team was improving to 4-0 by defeating Wichita State in the CBE Classic, Big East brethren Cincinnati was knocking off 24th-ranked Vanderbilt at the Maui Classic.
Good start for the Big East this year, isn't it? he was asked.
"This year? That's us every year,'' Dixon replied.
True, but this time it wasn't supposed to start off this well. You couldn't find a preview of the conference -- coming off of an NCAA tournament with four teams reaching the Elite Eight and two making the Final Four -- that didn't include the phrase "off-year'' or "down year.'' It may still turn out that way, but November so far says otherwise.
Going into Wednesday night's action, the league's 16 teams are a combined 58-5. Six teams are at least 4-0, four others are 3-0. Their teams have captured the two most competitive early-season tournaments so far, pretty convincingly and against highly ranked and well-regarded opponents. In Maui, Cincinnati has already knocked off two ranked teams on the way to the championship game. Meanwhile, the team picked by many to win the Big East, West Virginia, has barely gotten started.
West Virginia coach Bob Huggins, not surprisingly, was moved to sarcasm by the crackling-hot start. "Everybody's saying the league's down. Yeah, the league's down. We only have six teams in the top 25,'' he said in Monday's Charleston Gazette. "Every other league in America would be doing cartwheels if they had six teams in the top 25.''
Huggins unwittingly sold his league short, though: this week's AP poll has seven Big East teams ranked. Villanova is fourth, thanks to a Puerto Rico Classic win that began with a nail-biter over George Mason, but went into another gear with wins over then-ranked Dayton and Mississippi. The 1-0 Mountaineers, whose schedule picks up when they play in the 76 Classic in Anaheim, are eighth. Connecticut is 13th, Louisville 16th, Georgetown 19th and Notre Dame, the newcomers at 4-0, is 23rd.
Then there's Syracuse.
The 5-0 Orange epitomize the defiance of expectations, making an unprecedented leap from out of the rankings to 10th in the country. This can happen when you become a nationwide laughingstock by losing an exhibition at home to LeMoyne, then spank then-No. 13 Cal and then-No. 6 North Carolina on back-to-back days at Madison Square Garden to win the Coaches Vs. Cancer tournament.
Syracuse is such a great stand-in for everything going on in the Big East because it had a massive talent exodus, yet managed to get up to speed faster than anyone anticipated. Transfer Wesley Johnson was the tournament MVP with 42 points and 19 rebounds in New York, in the wins by a total of 48 points.
"That's about as good as it gets,'' coach Jim Boeheim told reporters afterward, "and it was against North Carolina and it was here (in the Garden).''
Villanova, 5-0, has gotten what it expected from Scottie Reynolds, one of the handful of Big East stars who returned. The Wildcats got more than expected from forward Antonio Pena, who had 17 points and 16 rebounds against Ole Miss in the Puerto Rico finale, and Duke transfer Taylor King, who had 11 rebounds.
Like Syracuse, Villanova got an early wake-up call in the win over George Mason, which wasn't sealed until it smothered the Patriots on the final possession and prevented them from getting off a game-winning shot. What both Big East teams have done since then changed perceptions of those early slip-ups and, thus, of the teams themselves. Now, the victories over respect-worthy teams are what define the conference's quality so far.
The early showings by the underachievers and bottom-feeders have helped as well; that is where the four losses are concentrated, and half of those could be cast in a fairly positive light. South Florida, with its under-fire head coach Stan Heath, knocked off Virginia, widely picked to finish last in the ACC but still an ACC foe; the Bulls also took a respectable loss to South Carolina in Charleston. DePaul, 0-for-the-Big East last season, acquitted itself well in a four-point loss to Tennessee in the Virgin Islands tourney that Tennessee eventually lost to Purdue.
And 4-0 Cincinnati is clearly gaining momentum. The wild card in the Maui field, the Bearcats positioned themselves nicely with the win over Vanderbilt and followed it up with a dominant win over Maryland. They also are part of a pivotal stretch, as Thanksgiving approaches, in which the conference can really pump up its rep and its RPI.
Cincinnati plays Gonzaga in the Maui final Wednesday. Also Wednesday, Connecticut, also gutted after its Final Four run last season, faces a rebuilding LSU in the Preseason NIT semifinal in the Garden, and could see Duke in the final. In the Old Spice tournament in Orlando, Marquette plays Xavier, which is breaking in a new coach and key players. West Virginia opens the Anaheim tournament against Long Beach State, and the field includes Butler, Clemson, Minnesota and UCLA.
It would take a complete wipeout to negate the good vibes of the first two-plus weeks of the season by the Big East. Collectively, they're turning "down year'' into a relative term.
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Nice Article about BE Basketball from Fanhouse.com
