The Holy Land of Hoops

OOC session is officially done and the conference battle can begin. It was fun rooting for each other.

One big thing I will keep in mind that I hope other do as well.

May the best man win: I really don't dig the the whole rooting against one BE team to win against another just because it may reduce the conference's overall bids in the NCAA tourney.

What I am trying to say is, please don't start infighting on behalf of "The Conference". If your team gets upset and cost the conference a bid, tough shit, thats what competition is all about.

Not quite all folks,

Xavier travels 3 miles on February 18 to play the University of Cincinnati in a February OOC game.

Anybody else playing a late OOC game?

Coasterville95 wrote:Not quite all folks,

Xavier travels 3 miles on February 18 to play the University of Cincinnati in a February OOC game.

Anybody else playing a late OOC game?

St. John's plays Duke late.

Nova still has a Big 5 game left against Penn at the Palestra.

Bottom line is that the Big East has positioned itself extremely well with its OOC record. Wins against each other will be valued based on the strength of performance that the conference has established against the rest of the country. That is a really big deal.

IMO Villanova still stands head and shoulders above the rest of the conference. If they can run through the conference as they did last year and then cap that with a a tournament championship, they could be looking at a #1 seed. They're clearly the ones with the target on their back going into conference play.

Big East finished 3rd amongst conferences during OOC play, behind the Big 12 & ACC but ahead of Big 10, SEC & Pac 12...

Also 7 teams ranked in the Top 50, based on the computers.

Great job!

Westbrook#36 wrote:Nova still has a Big 5 game left against Penn at the Palestra.

A win over Penn would not only give Villanova its first undefeated out-of-conference record since affiliating in 1976, but would also be Jay Wright's sixth 4-0 sweep of the city. Jack Ramsay did it at SJU(PA) five times from 1955-66; no other coach in 60 years of Big 5 basketball has done it more than twice.

Bill Marsh wrote:Bottom line is that the Big East has positioned itself extremely well with its OOC record. Wins against each other will be valued based on the strength of performance that the conference has established against the rest of the country. That is a really big deal.

IMO Villanova still stands head and shoulders above the rest of the conference. If they can run through the conference as they did last year and then cap that with a a tournament championship, they could be looking at a #1 seed. They're clearly the ones with the target on their back going into conference play.

The OOC record is almost exactly what it was last year. Last year OOC we went 94-31 .752 This year we went 92-30 .754

What is different is that spots 3-7 are a bit better than they were last year.... from Ken Pom- ratings before 1st conference games....
1st spot- Nova last year 8 this year 5
2nd spot- Creighton last year 15, this year SJ 18
3rd spot- Geo last year 32, this year 28
4th spot- X last year 39, this year 29
5th spot- Mar last year 44, this year But 35
6th spot- But last year 52, this year SH 39
7th spot- SJ last year 56, this year PC 48
8th spot- PC last year 69, this year Cre 76
9th spot- SH last year 121, this year Mar 98
10th spot- Dep last year 132, this year 211
Especially 4-7 are much stronger. Only problem is Seton Hall with their injuries is 6th and could see them crater similarly to what Butler did last year.

avg rating last year entering conf play 56.8
avg rating this year entering conf play 58.7

my point is things are almost exactly the same as last year but distributed a bit differently- probably a lot better in terms of getting more teams in- or the same number of teams in- but a whole lot more comfortably.

stever20 wrote: Only problem is Seton Hall with their injuries is 6th and could see them crater similarly to what Butler did last year.

We'll see, you could be right about that, but at this point we really don't know how long Whitehead is out. If it really is just the minimum 2 weeks, it could turn out to be a sort of blessing in disguise. The Pirates played some of their worst ball so far this year when they started to get "Isaiah-dependent." They went through some long stretches (most notably against WSU) of having 4 guys just standing around watching Whitehead try to go 1 on 5. Then against Georgia he got in early foul trouble and the team couldn't recover from it. These were present in other games too, but they get downplayed since they were all wins.

Now obviously, if I had to pick 2 games for IW to miss, home vs St. John's and Villanova are the absolute last 2 I'd have chosen. The Pirates need a minimum of 1 win from the 4 games against them and at home is obviously much easier than away. But as far the rest of the season goes, I think being forced to play without him for a few games should make the team stronger when he gets back. Unfortunately, we just really don't know how long that's gonna be.

Hall2012 wrote:

stever20 wrote: Only problem is Seton Hall with their injuries is 6th and could see them crater similarly to what Butler did last year.

We'll see, you could be right about that, but at this point we really don't know how long Whitehead is out. If it really is just the minimum 2 weeks, it could turn out to be a sort of blessing in disguise. The Pirates played some of their worst ball so far this year when they started to get "Isaiah-dependent." They went through some long stretches (most notably against WSU) of having 4 guys just standing around watching Whitehead try to go 1 on 5. Then against Georgia he got in early foul trouble and the team couldn't recover from it. These were present in other games too, but they get downplayed since they were all wins.

Now obviously, if I had to pick 2 games for IW to miss, home vs St. John's and Villanova are the absolute last 2 I'd have chosen. The Pirates need a minimum of 1 win from the 4 games against them and at home is obviously much easier than away. But as far the rest of the season goes, I think being forced to play without him for a few games should make the team stronger when he gets back. Unfortunately, we just really don't know how long that's gonna be.

I agree with you. I think frankly a bigger loss is next week playing at Xavier and Creighton. I think those games are much bigger quite frankly. Thing also like Butler last year- you get into a 0-4 hole, and you are in deep trouble. Would likely have to go 10-4 rest of the way to get in- and that to me is a huge ask for Seton Hall.