JIFFY!! If you'd call my phone I could say hello back....you never call anymore.... BTW, You realize that Tobacco Road has an Expressway that goes thru BIG East land and then turns left headed for Detroit right?
I'm confused. West Virginia and Marquette are in the Big East, right? I know in the NIT, I saw the terrible beat down that Baylor put on VTech. I'm not saying the Big East isnt' having a good year.. but they've proven to be as mortal as others in the past.
Sid, LOL! Back to the remedial spin workshop for you, Corey. You are going to lose the King of Skybox Spin crown if you are not careful.
oh yeah mea culpa.. they are former Big East. I can never keep track of who is in and who is out of that conference with all of the 'partial' memberships there, It was Georgetown (Big East I believe) that went down to Baylor in the previous game. As I mentioned, and seems to be undisputed, both Marquette and West Virginia are gone. Providence, like Georgetown, went out in the 1st round of the NIT. I'm not spinning anything here. They are the ones being referred to as 'The Greatest Conference of All-Time'
I have not read that. I read about their being the best conference this year and all of the Marquette guys on our office make that claim on a daily basis to us B10 alums although I think a lot of their repressed anger is due to Cream leaving Marquette last year to go to Indiana. But, 5 teams in the Sweet Sixteen is pretty damn impressive. Yet, one year during the Ewing era, I believe 3 Big East teams made the Final Four. I am not sure that will happen this year.
I think that is the only claim that the Big East has made this year, that top to bottom they were the best conference. So far the NCAA tournament has not done anything to dispell that thought. Almost 1/3 of the Sweet 16, that's prettygood reference for who's the best conference this year.
I've heard that on both ESPN and FoxSports radio programming. According to this article written in the New York Times news service has Pitt's own head coach making the claim. I know they have a 'record' 5 teams in the Sweet 16.. How many of those wins came against teams that were lower (better) seeded than they were? They received some pretty sweet home games thanks to the pod system and some light scheduling. That starts changing real soon.
Well reading that article I see what you mean. As far as the "ever" comment I just don't know about that, but certainly the overall strength of the Big East teams is undeniable this year. We'll have to see how it plays out year to year, maybe we'll be the SEC of basketball!! :roll:
Any time I hear "best ever" associated with sports, I roll my eyes and ignore the conversation. The folks who say or write about those things are usually of the "What have you done for me lately?" mindset. As such, they ignore history for the sake of touting the present, which renders their conclusions meaningless.
Not only that, the especially vacuous ones will add something like "I don't think we're likely to see such a thing again in our lifetime", often with wide-eyed and breathless incredulity.
No argument from me... but of course I know this wasn't meant for me since I made no argument from the start.
Not true. No one wants to hear it so I dropped it. Since you brought it back up 3 of the 8 teams in the quarterfinals of the NIT are from the SEC. (Florida, Kentucky and Auburn) They are 6-1 in the tourney (with SCAR losing in the first round). It is possible, although maybe not likely, to have an all-SEC final in the NIT and perhaps an all-SEC semi-final on one side of the bracket. The fact remains... The selection/seeding committee did a sh*t job this year.
How so? Just because 3 SEC teams are still in the NIT, you assume they got hosed by the NCAA? What if ND should make it to the NIT final four. Will you say that they also got hosed? I have more of an issue with St. Mary's and South Carolina getting dissed than with the 3 SEC teams still alive, but having that difference of opinion does not mean I think that the selection committee did a bad job. The fact is, there always will be major conference and deserving mid-major teams left on the outside looking in as long as there are automatic berths for mid-major conference tourney champs. Arizona got lucky this year, and they've parlayed their good fortune into a trip to the Sweet Sixteen. Good for them.
Geez since the top teams of all the other conferences are/were in the NCAA it's nice to see that the top tier teams of the SEC can handle the bottom tier teams of the other conferences. What the heck does that prove? Nothing other than they have found a level that they can survive in (as opposed to the NCAA where they couldn't.)
Sid, Gone are the days of the real upsets. Referring back to the original topic, I felt that the SEC should have had one more team (Auburn the hottest or SCAR who shared the SEC East) and maybe two. The midmajors got the shaft the worst. The majors are not only taking the top spots, but if you look, they are getting some pretty damned sweet seeds/draws with this pod system. A "West" regional played in Philadelphia? People have pointed toward the higher seeds moving on as 'proof' that these committees are getting it right. To buy into that you have to believe the mid-majors and lower-tier conference teams getting worse. IMHO, I don't believe that is the case at all. They are simply being excluded. Still, the good thing about the tournament is that the games will be played regardless of location.. and for that I am thankful. In the bigger picture, you are correct that it doesn't really matter when you're talking about anything outside of the top 16 teams. So with that in mind, why do we really need to see a 7th place team from the Big 10? Why not the #2 from a mid-major, or heck.. the SEC East co-champ?