If Big East Wants to Reach its Ultimate Potential, then.....

[SJHooper]

SJ was ranked as high as #18 in 2011 and beat 5 top 10 teams cruising into the NCAA's until Kennedy got hurt. Things would have been very different if one key player did not get injured. This was a team that whipped Duke, Nova, UConn, Pitt, etc. In 2013 we were on the bubble until Harrison our best player was suspended for the final 6 games. This year we are firmly on the bubble and Lunardi says we may sneak in if we win our next game. How many years has SHU been in the NCAA hunt? All I remember is that one year with Theodore when you were ranked. Other than that, nothing close to even the bubble. SHU is a joke. We have more than 3x the amount of tourney appearances. This is a grown man conversation. Go sit at the kid table with your red hair and freckles.

And once again no one has said SJ is the MOST important program to the conference's success, but there is zero doubt we are an essential piece and no worse than #4 in the pecking order.

This isn't about St. John's vs Seton Hall. It's about your petty insults and needlessly attacking and trying to put down other programs. But, just some stuff for you to chew on..

-Your 2011 team was pretty good- your lone glory year of the decade. You beat some good teams and you broke into the polls. Seton Hall 84- St. John's 70. Ouch.
-NCAA Tournament appearances in the past decade- SJU 1, SHU 2. Neither are good, but it certainly doesn't suggest St. John's being superior.
-Higher finishes in the Big East standings over the past decade (this year included)- SJU 4, SHU 6.
-Top NYC recruits committed for next year: SJU 0, SHU 4.

1. 2011: we also beat Duke and we were nowhere near as good as Duke. So who cares?
2. Only teams with 9 tourney appearances need to pick a small window to focus on because their overall program is very weak.
3. Totally different Big East now
4. Who cares? The rest of the country has surpassed NYC as the premier talent pool for ballers. Back in the day NYC was a real hot spot for recruits. Now there are great players all over the country. By the way, since you brought it up: you literally had to pimp a player out through his coach to get him. Your program promised IW's coach a position on the staff for the sole reason of signing IW. IW made it obvious he wanted to go to SJ until the eleventh hour when his coach demanded that Lavin take him with IW as a package deal. We did not stoop to that level, so we said go ahead to SHU. And there he is. SHU needed to pimp a player out to get him. Draw your own conclusions. This is also the same Seton Hall fanbase that creeped out Kyle Anderson who raised an eyebrow and walked away.

I'm finished with the SHU v. SJU thing though. People know it's not even close overall. 9 vs. 28. That says it all. We are the 7th winningest program in the country. We fell on hard times the past 2 decades mostly, but we are clearly on the way back up. Enjoy your day. Once you get to double digits in tourney appearances we can continue this.

[Hall2012]

1. 2011: we also beat Duke and we were nowhere near as good as Duke. So who cares?
2. Only teams with 9 tourney appearances need to pick a small window to focus on because their overall program is very weak.
3. Totally different Big East now
4. Who cares? The rest of the country has surpassed NYC as the premier talent pool for ballers. Back in the day NYC was a real hot spot for recruits. Now there are great players all over the country. By the way, since you brought it up: you literally had to pimp a player out through his coach to get him. Your program promised IW's coach a position on the staff for the sole reason of signing IW. IW made it obvious he wanted to go to SJ until the eleventh hour when his coach demanded that Lavin take him with IW as a package deal. We did not stoop to that level, so we said go ahead to SHU. And there he is. SHU needed to pimp a player out to get him. Draw your own conclusions. This is also the same Seton Hall fanbase that creeped out Kyle Anderson who raised an eyebrow and walked away.

I'm finished with the SHU v. SJU thing though. People know it's not even close overall. 9 vs. 28. That says it all. We are the 7th winningest program in the country. We fell on hard times the past 2 decades mostly, but we are clearly on the way back up. Enjoy your day. Once you get to double digits in tourney appearances we can continue this.

Oh you're back on this again- "wahhhhhhh nobody can possibly beat the almighty St. John's (on the court or in recruiting) without cheating." Now let's point out something that you conveniently left out. That IW was leaning heavily towards SHU until that last minute visit to SJU (the day before he was going to decide). Then speculation was that he changed his mind to SJU during that visit (wonder how much $$$ he was offered). So either that speculation was wrong and he didn't change his mind, or he changed it back afterwords because he chose SHU. He never "made it obvious he wanted to go to SJ." Seton Hall was a finalist in his recruitment the entire time, long before any mention of Morton joining the SHU staff came up, so your claim about that being "the sole reason of signing IW" is just an obvious sign of your jealousy and ignorance.

[notkirkcameron]

The idea that any one program is "The most important" or even assigning ranks to how important certain programs are to a conference is frankly, dumb. And reeks of littleman syndrome.

You win. You just win. The winning teams play in March, get eyeballs, get recruits, get more national tv broadcasts, etc. The teams that don't win are inherently, not important, and not included in the national discussion. Doesn't matter if you're from a big city like New York or a po-dunk town like Durham, North Carolina, Lawrence, Kansas, Lexington, Kentucky, or Storrs, Connecticut. Just win baby!

Thinking that any team is "more important" because of how it performed 30 years ago, or because of the market makes no sense.

Put another way, I can't imagine Dave Gavitt sitting in a conference room in the summer of 1985 and saying "Well guys, I know we got three teams in the Final Four, and two in the Final, Villanova's the National Champion BUT HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS, BOSTON COLLEGE WENT 7-9 IN THE LEAGUE AND COULDN'T EVEN BEAT MEMPHIS STATE FROM THE FREAKING METRO CONFERENCE IN THE TOURNAMENT. BOSTON IS A BIG TV MARKET, IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT THEY GET BACK ON TOP OR THIS LEAGUE ISN'T GOING ANYWHERE!"

I can't imagine the Commissioner of the Horizon League was bummed when Butler made it to back-to-back NCAA Title games instead of Illinois-Chicago.

If you win, you get the attention and the importance. If you don't, you don't.

[stever20]

I think though there is such a thing as flagship programs. The perception of the Pac 12 in football is greater when USC is really strong. It's a reality.

I think if anything though with the Big East you could say one of the reasons this year the perception is so poor is because Georgetown is somewhat down, along with St John's(especially them earlier in the year). Big Brands are what moves the needle. You look at the top tv games. They're almost always when 2 top dogs are playing each other. I think the 2 Duke/Syracuse games were the top 2 TV games on ESPN this year.

[XU85]

Conveniently excluding wins and losses...I like it! Very good method of comparing these 2 programs. DePaul has not just been bad, they have been THE worst. They have made the Mets look good by comparison. And that's not even an exaggeration. I want DePaul to do well but the truth is they would not be in a major conference today if they were re-done. St. John's still could be. Much more hype, MSG, the better tradition, the more notable former players, the much better recruits, etc.

Let's not let the 7th winningest program in D-1 basketball history get any credit. You can talk about dates all you want, but it counts for all teams. You can't argue that Yankee Stadium allows lots of HR's and gives the Yanks an edge, because the opponent has the same opportunity. Same with going back in time to evaluate programs. Every team has those years from 30+ years ago that helped boost their NCAA tourney appearances and other achievements. Do we not count it because it happened before we were born? The Yankees would not be all that amazing if you use that logic. You'd miss about 23 championships that way.

Do you realize most people don't even know DePaul exists? It's true. Ask any common fan to rattle off Big East teams. Villanova, Georgetown, Marquette, Seton Hall, Creighton, Butler, Providence, Xavier, St. John's and.....crap what's that other team? I know it may come off as harsh but it's true.

No one with their head on straight considers SJ and DePaul comparable programs either overall or recently. Their buzz is zero.

They have 18 tourney appearances. SJ has 28 and could easily have had 30 by now barring the suspension of key players when on the bubble. SJ also has almost 400 more wins.

But let's not let that get in the way. Yup. St. John's is the last place team every year and has zero buzz.

So.....do any other posters think this emperor already knows he's not wearing any clothes, or is that realization coming later?

later...shortly before change of moniker.

[XUFan09]

I think though there is such a thing as flagship programs. The perception of the Pac 12 in football is greater when USC is really strong. It's a reality.

I think if anything though with the Big East you could say one of the reasons this year the perception is so poor is because Georgetown is somewhat down, along with St John's(especially them earlier in the year). Big Brands are what moves the needle. You look at the top tv games. They're almost always when 2 top dogs are playing each other. I think the 2 Duke/Syracuse games were the top 2 TV games on ESPN this year.

I agree with the idea of flagship programs, but I don't think St. John's should be mentioned with Georgetown in that context. Georgetown and Marquette, on the other hand, is appropriate. That's two of the top 3 of the Catholic 7. Butler sucking and Xavier not being its usual self (safely in the tournament, wondering about which single-digit seed it gets) hurts too, as these were the two automatic choices for the new conference, but going 1 for 3 on your flagship programs really hurts perception.

Yes, I know Marquette is one of the more recent additions to the conference, but I label them "flagship" because they are one of the three holdovers from the Big East that has won a lot recently.

[RDinNY]

Obviously, this isn't the place to say anything positive about St. John's. We've been bad for a little over a decade, but this program was one of the flagship programs of the Big East. There is great history there. New York is the media capital of the world and it would help the league tremendously for St. John's to be successful.

Guys who are new to the league may not fully understand that. Further, the desire to disparage St. John's on this site colors perspective.

[stever20]

I think though there is such a thing as flagship programs. The perception of the Pac 12 in football is greater when USC is really strong. It's a reality.

I think if anything though with the Big East you could say one of the reasons this year the perception is so poor is because Georgetown is somewhat down, along with St John's(especially them earlier in the year). Big Brands are what moves the needle. You look at the top tv games. They're almost always when 2 top dogs are playing each other. I think the 2 Duke/Syracuse games were the top 2 TV games on ESPN this year.

I agree with the idea of flagship programs, but I don't think St. John's should be mentioned with Georgetown in that context. Georgetown and Marquette, on the other hand, is appropriate. That's two of the top 3 of the Catholic 7. Butler sucking and Xavier not being its usual self (safely in the tournament, wondering about which single-digit seed it gets) hurts too, as these were the two automatic choices for the new conference, but going 1 for 3 on your flagship programs really hurts perception.

Yes, I know Marquette is one of the more recent additions to the conference, but I label them "flagship" because they are one of the three holdovers from the Big East that has won a lot recently.

I think St John's is much more of a flagship over Marquette- just because of the long term history. Marquette's been a fantastic add- taking nothing away from them. Don't know if we would have been as bold as we were had they not been what they had been the past several years. But fact is when folks think Big East and specifically the C7, they think of St John's, they think of Nova, and they think of Georgetown.

[mpwalsh8]

Obviously, this isn't the place to say anything positive about St. John's. We've been bad for a little over a decade, but this program was one of the flagship programs of the Big East. There is great history there. New York is the media capital of the world and it would help the league tremendously for St. John's to be successful.

Guys who are new to the league may not fully understand that. Further, the desire to disparage St. John's on this site colors perspective.

I don't believe there is a collective animosity toward St. John's. There is however, one SJU poster who continues make posts that are just plain silly. Because of those posts I do see a collective annoyance toward that one particular poster (SJHooper/Lavinwood/insert other alias here).

Injuries and suspensions are not excuses for not making the tournament. They are a fact of life and teams deal with them every year. NCAA Tournament participation is binary: You're either in or you're not. There is no partial credit for years when you should have made it but didn't for whatever reason.

[mpwalsh8]

... Snipped ...

I think St John's is much more of a flagship over Marquette- just because of the long term history. Marquette's been a fantastic add- taking nothing away from them. Don't know if we would have been as bold as we were had they not been what they had been the past several years. But fact is when folks think Big East and specifically the C7, they think of St John's, they think of Nova, and they think of Georgetown.

That may be the case in the northeast but it isn't the case where I live down here in ACC country (Raleigh). Basketball IQ is pretty high here and based on the people I interact with Marquette is more well known than St. John's is. I believe that is because for the last 10 years Marquette has been pretty much of a fixture in the Top 25, the NCAA tournament, their Final 4 and Elite 8 runs, and Dwayne Wade. MU is down this year and people notice It.