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Creighton: arguably the most important team this year, media wise, thanks to Doug McDermott. A second much needed ranked team to join Nova and give other fan bases someone to try to beat. As a St. John's fan, our biggest win was against you and it was great to have the opportunity to play you and see McDermott in person. Great fan support at MSG for the tournament. Overall most important team for the conference this year, with Nova being a possible exception.

Xavier: not as exciting a season as creighton but you had a decent ooc season and made the tournament which is exactly what we hoped for. I think this team will be the best of the newcomers going forward.

Butler: not the season you hoped for but actually helped the conference quite a bit this season. Had great ooc results and was near the top of the Big East before conference play. Rpi was around 36. Then completely collapsed, thus sharing the wealth of a great ooc which boosted everyone else's rpi. This is contrary to a team like Seton Hall or Marquette who had a poor out of conference and then went on to win a lot of conference games but not enough to go dancing. This is not to fault those teams for winning conference games but rather illustrate how Butler was a big asset despite losing a lot of games.

Next year I expect creighton to take a step back and I don't have too high hopes for Butler so let's hope some of the Catholic 7, particularly underperformers this year like Georgetown, St. John's, and Marquette step up. The new teams really carried a lot of the conference this year.

X should be back to the pre Dez Wells teams next year if Christon is back. I'll take the year since X was picked 7th and ended up 3-4 but was only a game or two away from being 7th. It still feels like kind of a mediocre year though. X just sucked away from Cintas. X, Georgetown, St. John's, Marquette, Butler and Seton Hall need to up their games next season for this league to take that next step.

I sure hope Christon comes back, if he does, they should be a ranked team along with Villanova. SJU "should" be good as well. Georgetown and Marquette need to return to form next year.

Jet915 wrote:I sure hope Christon comes back, if he does, they should be a ranked team along with Villanova. SJU "should" be good as well. Georgetown and Marquette need to return to form next year.

If Christon comes back, Xavier will be a top 15 team, if not in the preseason then early on in the season. With a significant contribution off the bench from just one member of their loaded recruiting class, that would be a very good team. Remy Abell, who was the 7th man on the 1-seeded IU team, will also be eligible.

If Christon doesn't come back, then he led Xavier on a big run in this tournament to solidify a 1st-round draft position. I guess I'd be okay with that lol.

XUFan09 wrote:

Jet915 wrote:I sure hope Christon comes back, if he does, they should be a ranked team along with Villanova. SJU "should" be good as well. Georgetown and Marquette need to return to form next year.

If Christon comes back, Xavier will be a top 15 team, if not in the preseason then early on in the season. With a significant contribution off the bench from just one member of their loaded recruiting class, that would be a very good team. Remy Abell, who was the 7th man on the 1-seeded IU team, will also be eligible.

If Christon doesn't come back, then he led Xavier on a big run in this tournament to solidify a 1st-round draft position. I guess I'd be okay with that lol.

I watched Abell last year at IU. He is a solid defender but can't score.

HoosierPal wrote:

XUFan09 wrote:

Jet915 wrote:I sure hope Christon comes back, if he does, they should be a ranked team along with Villanova. SJU "should" be good as well. Georgetown and Marquette need to return to form next year.

If Christon comes back, Xavier will be a top 15 team, if not in the preseason then early on in the season. With a significant contribution off the bench from just one member of their loaded recruiting class, that would be a very good team. Remy Abell, who was the 7th man on the 1-seeded IU team, will also be eligible.

If Christon doesn't come back, then he led Xavier on a big run in this tournament to solidify a 1st-round draft position. I guess I'd be okay with that lol.

I watched Abell last year at IU. He is a solid defender but can't score.

He's simply what we need: A good defender at the 2/3 who can handle the ball and shoot from deep.

I'm not sure why Abell transferred. Likely, as with many, he didn't like his PT. I didn't look it up, but I believe he was in every game and scored maybe 4 ppg.

HoosierPal wrote:I'm not sure why Abell transferred. Likely, as with many, he didn't like his PT. I didn't look it up, but I believe he was in every game and scored maybe 4 ppg.

I think it was just the depth at the guard position, especially with Yogi Ferrell, though I'm not entirely sure. The fact that Oladipo and Zeller, two of his best friends, left for the draft was also a factor, I'm sure. I've been told on multiple occasions that a lot of IU fans and the coaching staff were sad to see him go.

He was a fairly efficient player, earning a 115.9 offensive rating at a 17.0% usage rate (role player level). For Xavier, he fills the Dez Wells vacuum in a way, since there is no versatile 2/3 on the team right now, and he'll be able to start or be the first one off the bench most likely. We hear a lot of good things from practice.

I hope Christon stays for Xavier...this conference needs all the stars it can get to make headlines...look what McDermott did for us this year. Too bad Cotton is graduating from PC. Creighton will take a step back obviously but hopefully they are still competitive...hopefully a worst case scenario for them is having a G'Town year next year. Don't think 17 wins and some possible big OOC wins is out of the question. There will be huge shoes to fill there though. G'Town and Marquette MUST step up. I refuse to have expectations for SJ because they always find a way to fall far below them. We all know what we can be and all the talent we have, but it usually doesn't translate. If it did we would be a top 15 team. Nova just has to keep it up. Seton Hall will be interesting. They lose a lot of veteran studs, but they gain a solid recruiting class. We never know if it will be boom or bust with recruiting classes these days as we saw with SJ. Maybe 1 or 2 of the players truly lived up to their hype i.e. Harrison/Jordan. And that's out of lots of great recruits. Hopefully they hit on at least one of those recruits.

HoosierPal wrote:I'm not sure why Abell transferred. Likely, as with many, he didn't like his PT. I didn't look it up, but I believe he was in every game and scored maybe 4 ppg.

As mentioned, his two best friends on the team left and he also wasn't the biggest fan of Crean (can't say I blame him).

This is just hearsay of course, though. I'm REALLY excited to see him play next year, think he will slide perfectly into our rotation.