It's no coincident that the two best defensive teams in the league are meeting for the NBA championship in 2005. Will there be a trickle down effect. Are the days of run and gun offense, little defense, and highlight reel type players on the decline? Will we see high school players start to emulate great defensive players? Will this eventually influence college players...who may see the NBA go after fundamently sound basketball players as opposed to big time, star quality, bring in the fan but not championship type players? I think the BEast already has a history and reputation as a strong defensive type league (Georgetown and Villanova come to mind). Louisville and Cincy each will bring a rugged brand of defense as well this year. How will this all eventually play out and can the BEast lead the way in what could be a return to defens?

This past year, when the regular season ended, Cincy was #1 and Louisville was #3 in field-goal defense in the nation.

I'm almost sure UofL and Cincy were also top 3 at the end of last season too.

For this year's final rankings after the NCAA tourney was over, Cincy dropped to # 2, and UofL #8 (I'm sure Pitsnogle alone probably made us drop a few spots ).


UofL and Cincy will give the BE as good of defense as they are used to seeing.


<a href='http://web1.ncaa.org/stats/StatsSrv/rankings?sportCode=MBB&rpt=wkly' target='_blank'>NCAA stats, you have to pick from the drop-downs</a>