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A few months back we had a discussion on this site about the overall strength of Big East athletic departments, using various weighting methodologies to determine which school had the best overall season athletically. On the heels of that discussion, we decided to identify and recognize the best of Big East athletics. Using the insight of our users and the freedom to decide what we felt were appropriate weighting of various sports, we have concluded that Marquette had the best overall Big East athletics season in 2013-14.

Which sports were included?
Men: Baseball, Basketball, Cross-Country, Golf, Lacrosse, Soccer, Swimming, Tennis, Indoor and Outdoor track.
Women: Volleyball, Basektball, Cross-Country, Golf, Softball, Soccer, Swimming, Tennis, Indoor an Outdoor track.
Note: Womens field hockey and Lacrosse not counted because only 3 BE schools field teams

How are points earned?
Based on the regular season finish in sports where there is a typical conference season like basketball and baseball. In sports like Tennis and Swimming, the results of the conference tournament were used to award points.

How are the sports weighted?
This is the key to our ratings system. Undeniably, the focal sport of the Big East conference is mens basketball and it was determined that it needed to be weighted heavily in comparison to other sports. That being said, most of us will agree that baseball, volleyball, womens basketball, and soccer probably rate some degree higher in level of importance than swimming and track, for example.

Basketball is weighted 5x the regular season finish (Villanova was the regular season champion - 10 points x 5 = 50)
Baseball 3x
Soccer 2x

Women's basketball 3x
Soccer 2x
Volleyball 2x

Men's and Women's indoor and outdoor track were each weighted 0.5 - thus, the full track season for each - 1.0

In sports with less than 10 members, how are points given?
In sports with:
9 teams (Men's golf) - 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
8 teams (Men's tennis) - 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 1
7 teams (Women's outdoor track) - 10, 8, 7, 6, 4, 3, 1
6 teams (Women's swimming) - (10, 8, 6, 4, 3, 1)
5 teams (Men's swimming) - 10, 8, 6, 4, 2

What about conference tournaments?
While we believe that overall athletic strength of a team is measured over a season of conference play, we also felt it was important to provide some type of bonus to those teams in the weighted sports that won the Big East tournament championship. For example, Providence was awarded 3 points for winning the Men's basketball tournament x the weighting of the sport (3 x 5 = 15 bonus points). Likewise, DePaul Women's basketball earned 3 points x weighting (3) for 9 bonus points.

Mens Scores:

School (score) + bonus

Butler 50.75
Creighton 94
DePaul 28.5
Georgetown 79
Marquette 80 + (6 bonus)
Providence 65 + (15 bonus)
St Johns 87.25
Seton Hall 62
Villanova 93
Xavier 94.5 + (9 bonus)


Total:
Xavier 103.5
Creighton 94
Villanova 93
Marquette 86
St. Johns 87.25
Providence 80
Georgetown 79
Seton Hall 62
Butler 50.75
DePaul 28.5

Womens's Scores:

School (score) + bonus

Butler 59
Creighton 58
DePaul 63.5 + (9 bonus)
Georgetown 78
Marquette 78.5 + (12 bonus)
Providence 30.5
St Johns 73.5
Seton Hall 64
Villanova 59.5
Xavier 48


Total:
Marquette 90.5
Georgetown 78
St. Johns 73.5
DePaul 72.5
Seton Hall 64
Villanova 59.5
Butler 59
Creighton 58
Xavier 48
Providence 30.5

Combining the Men's and Women's total scores gives us our overall 2014 Holy Land Athletic Strength rankings as follows:

1. Marquette 176.5
2. Villanova 162.5
3. St Johns 160.75
4. Georgetown 157
5. Creighton 152
6. Xavier 151.5
7. Seton Hall 116
8. Providence 110
9. Butler 109.75
10. DePaul 101

Interesting. I would personally give different strengths to some of the sports. Obviously this is colored by which sports we think are important, but I think Soccer Should be the second highest while I think Baseball and volleyball should be lower those sports have never been big in the BE and are after thoughts at Georgetown, so that's probably why I feel that way, but baseball definitely seems like it's never been one of the BE's main sports while Soccer has always been what the conference was 2nd best at of major sports. I also think Cross Country and track are bigger than you're giving credit for, but again that's probably me being biased by Georgetown.

hoyahooligan wrote:Interesting. I would personally give different strengths to some of the sports. Obviously this is colored by which sports we think are important, but I think Soccer Should be the second highest while I think Baseball and volleyball should be lower those sports have never been big in the BE and are after thoughts at Georgetown, so that's probably why I feel that way, but baseball definitely seems like it's never been one of the BE's main sports while Soccer has always been what the conference was 2nd best at of major sports. I also think Cross Country and track are bigger than you're giving credit for, but again that's probably me being biased by Georgetown.

As far as weighting goes, the goal was to try and identify the "nationally important" sports. I thought Men's basketball was obviously in it's own category (thus the 5x weighting), followed by Women's basketball and baseball. I think college soccer and basketball are probably a tick lower nationally.

Hard to rank schools like this. PC has dynamite men's and women's hockey programs. PC's men's were top10 top 5 nationally all year and lost to eventual NC in the final 8 of NCAA hockey tournament. Women's Cross Country won the BE their only NC and PC does not even play baseball which had high multipliers in this calculation.

I believe PC finished the highest of any BE school in Director's Cup awards, or just behind Georgetown, who plays an amazing amount of sports.

FriarJ wrote:Hard to rank schools like this. PC has dynamite men's and women's hockey programs. PC's men's were top10 top 5 nationally all year and lost to eventual NC in the final 8 of NCAA hockey tournament. Women's Cross Country won the BE their only NC and PC does not even play baseball which had high multipliers in this calculation.

I believe PC finished the highest of any BE school in Director's Cup awards, or just behind Georgetown, who plays an amazing amount of sports.

I agree with you on hockey, but the Big East doesn't sponsor it so it isn't included here. Also, if I understand how they calculate the Director's Cup, a Cross Country national championship the same as a basketball one. Our intent was to identify the strength of overall Big East athletic programs based on success against other conference schools with emphasis given to the "nationally important" sports.

admin wrote:

hoyahooligan wrote:Interesting. I would personally give different strengths to some of the sports. Obviously this is colored by which sports we think are important, but I think Soccer Should be the second highest while I think Baseball and volleyball should be lower those sports have never been big in the BE and are after thoughts at Georgetown, so that's probably why I feel that way, but baseball definitely seems like it's never been one of the BE's main sports while Soccer has always been what the conference was 2nd best at of major sports. I also think Cross Country and track are bigger than you're giving credit for, but again that's probably me being biased by Georgetown.

As far as weighting goes, the goal was to try and identify the "nationally important" sports. I thought Men's basketball was obviously in it's own category (thus the 5x weighting), followed by Women's basketball and baseball. I think college soccer and basketball are probably a tick lower nationally.

I mean as a predominately east coast conference no one cares about college baseball on the east coast. It's southern and midwest sport. And no one cares about women's basketball period outside of the state of Connecticut. And then shouldn't all the women's sports count less than their male counter parts? Volleyball seems to matter in the P12, SEC, B12, and B10, but again not on the east coast. Frankly for simplicity I'd count men's basketball as 5x or maybe more and then everything else as 1x.

Whoa whoa whoa Speak for yourself Hoya, us Johnnies care very much about our baseball and most years we are the best team in the entire region. Our Baseball team is probably tied for second amongst popularity of male sports along with soccer.