Omaha paper: Brutal Big East battles leave league fatigued

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Omaha paper: Brutal Big East battles leave league fatigued

Postby PC_Friars » Fri Mar 03, 2017 10:35 am

Nyatawa: ‘Brutal’ Big East battles leave league fatigued
Column by Jon Nyatawa / World-Herald staff writer Mar 3, 2017 Updated 7 hrs ago

Not too long after Providence’s coach had watched his team snatch a thrilling victory on Creighton’s home floor last week, he finished up his press conference, stepped off a podium and asked for a rundown of the night’s Big East scores.

Ed Cooley learned that Butler had snapped Villanova’s 48-game home winning streak. DePaul had stunned Georgetown and recorded its second conference win. And Seton Hall had pulled away late to hand Xavier its fourth straight loss (the Musketeers, a preseason top-10 team, have dropped two more games since).

The sixth-year Friar coach could only shake his head, exhale and briskly migrate back to the visiting locker room. He felt lucky.

“It’s hard winning, man,” Cooley said. “You get a win? You run out of that gym the fastest you can and be the happiest you can be. Seriously. It’s a brutal league.”

That’s coming from a coach whose team was on a three-game winning streak.

The perilous path through league play is now nearly complete for the squads in one of the nation’s toughest conferences. Ten weeks of competitive delirium — when the grateful victors wonder how they’ll ever sustain their extraordinary performance level and the losers poignantly ponder the small sampling of costly mistakes that spoiled their night.

Just over half of the 85 Big East games played so far have been decided by 10 points or less. About one-quarter of them ended as one-possession games.

Said Cooley: “It’s not like you can just show up and lollygag to a W. If you get a win, you’ve been in a heavyweight bout for 15 rounds.”

So here’s the question: How much do these Big East teams have left?

They still have one more day of regular season action, plus next week’s league tournament — and four of those participants (Providence, Marquette, Seton Hall and Xavier) won’t land in New York feeling any sort of certainty about their NCAA postseason standing.

As unpredictable (and entertaining) as the conference battle royale has been, one has to wonder if the Big East teams will be able to recharge in time for their most important test yet: the NCAA tournament.

Last year provided examples from both sides of the spectrum.

Villanova won all six of its NCAA tourney games to earn a national title, knocking off top-tier opponents with an exquisite display of precision and teamwork. That’s always a possibility, certainly.

But then there was Seton Hall, one of the nation’s hottest squads at the end of the season. It entered the NCAA tournament winning eight of its last nine games, including the Big East tournament. But the Pirates promptly got upset by Gonzaga. The league’s three other top teams (Xavier, Providence and Butler) followed a similar script last year.

Since its reconstruction, Big East teams have produced a winning percentage of .533 in the NCAA tournament, which is second-worst among the six major conferences (behind the Big 12’s .487 mark).

This league is stocked with talent, high-quality coaches and programs hungry to ascend within the sport’s hierarchy. But the teams spend January and February doing all they can just to keep their heads above water. At least lately, most have been spent by March.

Can they recover in time?

Villanova coach Jay Wright would prefer not to even consider that as a possible excuse.

“Are (my players) tired? Yeah. Are they worn down some? Yeah. It doesn’t matter. It can’t be the reason you lose,” Wright said after his team defeated Creighton on Saturday to win its fourth consecutive outright league championship. “Maybe you were tired and you didn’t concentrate, or we didn’t rebound — that’s what happened. That’s the way we look at it. Whether you’re tired or not doesn’t matter. You still have to get it done.”

We’ll see if the Wildcats and their Big East counterparts can summon enough inner-willpower to successfully propel themselves along for a few more weeks.


http://www.omaha.com/creighton/mens-bas ... 96774.html
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Omaha paper: Brutal Big East battles leave league fatigued

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Re: Omaha paper: Brutal Big East battles leave league fatigu

Postby PC_Friars » Fri Mar 03, 2017 10:36 am

Of particular note:

Since its reconstruction, Big East teams have produced a winning percentage of .533 in the NCAA tournament, which is second-worst among the six major conferences (behind the Big 12’s .487 mark).



And that includes Nova running the table last year. Bottom line is the other programs need to step up and make the sweet 16. I believe only Xavier has done this once. Not good enough. Also the article kind of suggests that the teams are tired from beating up on one another all year, which is true...But no one cares. And every year most of the other Power leagues can be just as brutal of a grind in the middle.
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Re: Omaha paper: Brutal Big East battles leave league fatigu

Postby EMT » Fri Mar 03, 2017 11:09 am

PC_Friars wrote:Of particular note:

Since its reconstruction, Big East teams have produced a winning percentage of .533 in the NCAA tournament, which is second-worst among the six major conferences (behind the Big 12’s .487 mark).



And that includes Nova running the table last year. Bottom line is the other programs need to step up and make the sweet 16. I believe only Xavier has done this once. Not good enough. Also the article kind of suggests that the teams are tired from beating up on one another all year, which is true...But no one cares. And every year most of the other Power leagues can be just as brutal of a grind in the middle.


Well.....the conference is looking at 7 bids.....but only 2 will be favored to win their opening round game based on seeding.
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Re: Omaha paper: Brutal Big East battles leave league fatigu

Postby Edrick » Fri Mar 03, 2017 11:16 am

Butler has never lost to a lower seed.
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Re: Omaha paper: Brutal Big East battles leave league fatigu

Postby sciencejay » Fri Mar 03, 2017 2:18 pm

Ok, so we are 5th out of 6 power conferences when it comes to NCAA tourney records the past three years. So what? What are the records of the four ahead of us? 0.999? Hell no. When you get a ton of teams in the tourney (as we have), some teams are seeded low enough to have very tough matchups in their first games. That's the way it is. The ACC is considered great because they often (not always) put teams into the S16, E8 or F4. It's not that UNC is always there, or Duke, or whoever. Those teams have plenty of early round exits. And our sample size is small--just three years. If our teams continue to perform at the level they have thus far, we're fine. We'll get teams into those late tourney rounds consistently. I am confident of that. Some years our record may be more like 0.600 and other years maybe 0.450.

We've just seen an extraordinary year where we could've had four teams in the top 10-12 in the nation (Nova, Butler, X, CU) if it weren't for significant injuries. CU and X are shells of their former selves. It happens. You move on--as a team and as a conference. Without the Sumner and Watson injuries (and the Watson legal issues that followed), this conference was really poised to make some noise in the tourney. Now not so much with those two. Butler and Nova still have great chances for excellent seeding and deep runs.
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Re: Omaha paper: Brutal Big East battles leave league fatigu

Postby stever20 » Fri Mar 03, 2017 2:38 pm

looking at things-
2014- 2-4 record. lost a game in first four(Xavier). lost a game in rd 1(PC to 6 seed UNC). Lost 2 in rd 2(2 Nova to 7 UConn, 3 Creighton to 6 Baylor) so no unexpected wins, and 2 unexpected losses
2015- 5-6 record. lost as seeded in rd 2(Butler). Got a team a rd further than expected due to upset(Xavier) Had an unexpected loss in rd 2(Nova to 8 NC State), Had an unexpected loss in rd 1(PC to Dayton). Had a team do as epected(SJ to San Diego St). Had a loss to a lower seed in rd 2(4 Georgetown to 5 Utah). So had 1 team go further than seeded, and had 3 teams lose to seeds lower than them.
2016- 9-4 record. Had Nova win it all- so 3 unexpected wins. Providence got a win over a higher seed in rd 1. Xavier with an unexpected loss in rd 2. Butler with a win over a higher seed in rd 1. Seton Hall with an unexpected loss in rd 1. So in total- 5 good wins, but 2 unexpected losses.

so in the 3 years- had really 5 good wins, with 1 other team going further than seeded(Xavier in '15)- but then 7 losses to teams seeded below them.

The tourney performance, outside of Nova last year just hasn't been good. I don't think there's any way to say it besides that.
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Re: Omaha paper: Brutal Big East battles leave league fatigu

Postby BEhomer » Fri Mar 03, 2017 3:16 pm

too small a sample size. by that logic, we are winning championship 1 out of every 3 years. that's not too bad.
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Re: Omaha paper: Brutal Big East battles leave league fatigu

Postby GumbyDamnit! » Fri Mar 03, 2017 4:51 pm

PC_Friars wrote:Of particular note:

Since its reconstruction, Big East teams have produced a winning percentage of .533 in the NCAA tournament, which is second-worst among the six major conferences (behind the Big 12’s .487 mark).



And that includes Nova running the table last year. Bottom line is the other programs need to step up and make the sweet 16. I believe only Xavier has done this once. Not good enough. Also the article kind of suggests that the teams are tired from beating up on one another all year, which is true...But no one cares. And every year most of the other Power leagues can be just as brutal of a grind in the middle.


Here you go. Tournament records the last 3 years by conference:

1). ACC: 42-18 .700 (ridiculous)
2). SEC: 21-11 .656 (impressive but mostly UK)
3). B1G: 30-20 .600
4). BE: 16-14 .533
5). PAC: 14-14 .500 (someone missed these guys I guess)
6). B12: 20-21 .488

*). AAC: 11-9 .550 (8 of 11 wins came by UConn & L'ville in 2014, AAC is 3-8 outside of those two teams)
*). A10: 7-8 .467


Observations:
- There is ZERO doubt that the ACC is the top conference. So for all the "BE is a grind" comments, imagine going through that meat grinder schedule.
- UK has 10 of the SEC's 21 wins; Nova has 8 of the BE's 16. Both the SEC and BE have to show success from the other teams IMO.
- If we went back a decade and looked at collective success, the current BE teams have put up a .566 tournament winning %. 64-49
- Not sure we should hang our heads low based on the #s. We're not on the ACC's level--everyone already knows that. But we've outperformed both the B12 and the PAC. Let's all try to take care of business in March and we'll be more than fine.
Go Nova!
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Re: Omaha paper: Brutal Big East battles leave league fatigu

Postby GumbyDamnit! » Fri Mar 03, 2017 4:54 pm

Just a follow up FYI from my previous post... Here are the NCAA tourney records for current BE teams over the last 10 seasons:

Butler 16-8
Nova 15-8
X 13-9
Marq 9-7
G'town 7-7
Jays 3-4
PC 1-3
SJU 0-2
SHU 0-1
DeP 0-0
Go Nova!
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Re: Omaha paper: Brutal Big East battles leave league fatigu

Postby stever20 » Fri Mar 03, 2017 5:05 pm

GumbyDamnit! wrote:
PC_Friars wrote:Of particular note:

Since its reconstruction, Big East teams have produced a winning percentage of .533 in the NCAA tournament, which is second-worst among the six major conferences (behind the Big 12’s .487 mark).



And that includes Nova running the table last year. Bottom line is the other programs need to step up and make the sweet 16. I believe only Xavier has done this once. Not good enough. Also the article kind of suggests that the teams are tired from beating up on one another all year, which is true...But no one cares. And every year most of the other Power leagues can be just as brutal of a grind in the middle.


Here you go. Tournament records the last 3 years by conference:

1). ACC: 42-18 .700 (ridiculous)
2). SEC: 21-11 .656 (impressive but mostly UK)
3). B1G: 30-20 .600
4). BE: 16-14 .533
5). PAC: 14-14 .500 (someone missed these guys I guess)
6). B12: 20-21 .488

*). AAC: 11-9 .550 (8 of 11 wins came by UConn & L'ville in 2014, AAC is 3-8 outside of those two teams)
*). A10: 7-8 .467


Observations:
- There is ZERO doubt that the ACC is the top conference. So for all the "BE is a grind" comments, imagine going through that meat grinder schedule.
- UK has 10 of the SEC's 21 wins; Nova has 8 of the BE's 16. Both the SEC and BE have to show success from the other teams IMO.
- If we went back a decade and looked at collective success, the current BE teams have put up a .566 tournament winning %. 64-49
- Not sure we should hang our heads low based on the #s. We're not on the ACC's level--everyone already knows that. But we've outperformed both the B12 and the PAC. Let's all try to take care of business in March and we'll be more than fine.

Um, Pac 12 I'm showing as
2014 8-6
2015 8-4
2016 4-7
so 20-17. .541
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