The Holy Land of Hoops

Nice work, and to think that next yr is really the one for the Pirates (on paper anyways).

Nova was the only team to start ranked, but Creighton jumped on up to be followed shortly by butler and providence , then St. John's climbed the ranks and georgetown joined the party. Now the Pirates storm on in.

70% of the conference cracking the polls by January 5th after starting with only ine ranked team Pretty solid.

I'd rather have 3 or 4 ranked higher. Parity is going to absolutely kill us. Probably only going to nave Nova and Seton Hall ranked this week.

Oh yeah, and seton hall has had a combined 20k at their last two games. Nice buzz about their program.

People who think we need to expand the conference to improve big east tourney numbers are not correct. We need the 10k who showed up at the last two pirates games to buy tickets to the event, and then another 7k from the johnnies fan base, and a few thousand from others teams' northeast fan base and other local casual fans to get excited about heading over to Broadway in early March. That is the formula the big east was raised on. It can work again.

stever20 wrote:I'd rather have 3 or 4 ranked higher. Parity is going to absolutely kill us. Probably only going to nave Nova and Seton Hall ranked this week.

We can play the game of tourney teams versus ranked teams, top end depth versus top to bottom quality. I'm not commenting in that topic.

I am impressed that 70% of the league has put its name into the ring in early January.

Question to Seton Hall fans. It was great seeing big crowd on NYE and today. Look's good on TV, but what does it take to open the upper deck? Could they have had 13,000 if the upper deck was open?

really impressed by their freshmen. they looked focused and poised. key will be how to blend whitehead into the mix when he comes back.

TheBall wrote:

stever20 wrote:I'd rather have 3 or 4 ranked higher. Parity is going to absolutely kill us. Probably only going to nave Nova and Seton Hall ranked this week.

We can play the game of tourney teams versus ranked teams, top end depth versus top to bottom quality. I'm not commenting in that topic.

I am impressed that 70% of the league has put its name into the ring in early January.

Thing is- right now for instance one of those teams- Creighton- is about as far away from the rankings as any team now. Same with Providence. Those 2 were ranked in Nov/Dec- but now have not much chance of even getting votes in the polls. Creighton in particular- saying their name is in the ring is frankly a joke. It's a long way from Oklahoma.

MUPanther wrote:Question to Seton Hall fans. It was great seeing big crowd on NYE and today. Look's good on TV, but what does it take to open the upper deck? Could they have had 13,000 if the upper deck was open?

Could've had another 2,000 or so maybe. Not at all worth it. Part of the appeal of Prudential Center is the ability for us to create an intimate atmosphere, a stark contrast to that awful airplane hangar in the middle of a swamp we used to play in. Until we know we can put 15,000 people in the place ALL THE TIME the upper deck stays closed. Having a few thousand extra people rattling around in the upper deck is not even remotely worth giving up the atmosphere we have in there now. The way the upper deck is curtained off and the arena is lighted you don't even realize there's an upper deck there. It feels like a 10,000 seat arena. And it gets LOUD. This place traps noise, our old arena was where noise went to die. The setup we have now is exactly what we need. And thankfully our AD gets that.

Here is an article where SHU AD Pat Lyons explains why he wont open the upper curtain.
http://www.app.com/story/sports/college/2015/01/02/seton-hall-basketball-villanova-prudential-center/21187831/

Thanks for the info. Attendance today at the Rock-10,701.

In 2017 when the Milwaukee Bucks need to have the new arena built to replace the Bradley Center, it will be nice to have more lower bowl seating. The Bradley Center is about 8,000 in the lower bowl and 11,000 in the upper deck.