Disappointing...again.

[DudeAnon]

I admire your optimism, but if you take Nova out of the picture it is obvious this conference is not prepared for March. Expansion is no guarantee that it helps, but after 5 years of this I can only look for some kind of change to mix things up.

Jeez... your team blows a historic opportunity and all of a sudden the conference needs to be changed? Get a grip. You blew that one like a Trevon Bluiett attempt at a drive...

Wait your turn to speak, Xavier has done a helluva lot more for this conference than Butler has.

[DudeAnon]

We are just a glorified version of the WCC and Nova is Gonzaga.

[JohnW22]

Butler certainly missed a great opportunity, but I'm not sure the fall off from being without Haas made it an expected win as some may have thought.
Either way, it was a 50/50 game vs. a top 10 team that we lost to by 20 earlier in the season, in a 10/2 matchup. Fan/ Conference/ Gambler expectations are one thing - reality is that BU was not favored in this game even with the injury.

Seton Hall definitely was not expected to win vs. Kansas in that situation, but was right there. Credit that awesome senior class, what a fun group to watch.

These doom and gloom conference comments are hilarious. BE hoops is up there with anyone. If Xavier hadn't been overseeded (yes they were) we would have had some better seeds for the lower teams.

Who shoulda have been the one seed over Xavier?

[ChestRockwell85]

We are just a glorified version of the WCC and Nova is Gonzaga.

Take a deep breath. Yes, the Big East needs to step up in the tournament, and yes, Villanova is the best team in the league and will be the best team in the league for the foreseeable future, BUT Villanova is better than Gonzaga, and the Big East as a whole is MUCH better than the WCC.

Are we that much better than the AAC? No, which needs to change, but we are still a big boy conference.

Recruiting (not Villanova's and Providence has a good class coming in next year) is what concerns me the most.

[Burrito]

We are just a glorified version of the WCC and Nova is Gonzaga.

Are you related to MullinMayhem?

[GumbyDamnit!]

We are just a glorified version of the WCC and Nova is Gonzaga.

Do us all a favor and go look at how many bids that conference has gotten in the past 5 years and how many the BE has and get back to me.

Troll.

[BEhomer]

so it all comes down to recruiting. we need more talents and please let's go get more size. i don't know how tall the FSU guy was but Xavier bigs looked like guards trying to front him.

He is 7'4". He scored 2 pts. They were both foul shots.
They also have a 7' guy. He scored 2 pts also.

when you have to front a guy there's always have to be backside help. and with the help guy cheating in, it creates more space for perimeter players. also numerous instances jones catches the ball down low and doesn't even look to put up a shot. it's a big boy game. length matters and affects the game in many ways.

[GumbyDamnit!]

i think the style of play has changed a lot with the current coaches in the Big East......

where before it was a really defensive league- you've seen the impact of Creighton and Marquette. Where before the league was much more ground and pound, it's now much more of a finesse league. And don't think that translates to March well(unless you have 50 bombers like what Nova has).

looking at the great numbers that Ken Pom has....
Offensive rebounding- in the old Big East- 2002-13- the league was always in the top 10 with the last 5 years in the top 3. Now, it's never been in the top 10, and this year was a league worst 25th.
percentage of shots as 3's- in old big east- league was never higher than 12th, and last 5 years always in the bottom 10. Now, it's never been outside the top 20, and this year was 10th.
tempo- in old big east- league ws in the top 10 only once, and in the 3 years before the split, was in the bottom 5 twice. Now, in the last 3 years, been in the top 5 twice.

My man, I agree with your opinion that the style of play in the BE has changed but not to the opinion that it has affected success in March. The game has changed significantly in the past 5 years. The plodding styles that teams like Pitt, G’town and Cincy embrace(d) has been replaced because of things like freedom of movement. The game is called differently to allow for greater offensive effectiveness. Bigs are mobile and can hit the 3. Defenses switch. You see less Haseem Thabeets and more Omari Spellman’s. Should we revert to that style of play at our detriment?

Can we all just stop with the comparisons to the old Big East and the ACC? We are not those conferences and prob will never be to that level, ever. In the old BE G’town, SJU, Nova, Cuse, PC, SHU, L’ville, UConn, and WVU all made FF’s. That’s insane. The current ACC is just such a deep and complete conference from top to bottom. We are not them either. But we are a damn good conference with 9.5 teams committed to hoops first. We’ll hover around the 2nd-6th best conference for the foreseeable future, just like we have since inception 5 years ago. There exists no metric that can prove otherwise.

[Savannah Jay]

i think the style of play has changed a lot with the current coaches in the Big East......

where before it was a really defensive league- you've seen the impact of Creighton and Marquette. Where before the league was much more ground and pound, it's now much more of a finesse league. And don't think that translates to March well(unless you have 50 bombers like what Nova has).

looking at the great numbers that Ken Pom has....
Offensive rebounding- in the old Big East- 2002-13- the league was always in the top 10 with the last 5 years in the top 3. Now, it's never been in the top 10, and this year was a league worst 25th.
percentage of shots as 3's- in old big east- league was never higher than 12th, and last 5 years always in the bottom 10. Now, it's never been outside the top 20, and this year was 10th.
tempo- in old big east- league ws in the top 10 only once, and in the 3 years before the split, was in the bottom 5 twice. Now, in the last 3 years, been in the top 5 twice.

My man, I agree with your opinion that the style of play in the BE has changed but not to the opinion that it has affected success in March. The game has changed significantly in the past 5 years. The plodding styles that teams like Pitt, G’town and Cincy embrace(d) has been replaced because of things like freedom of movement. The game is called differently to allow for greater offensive effectiveness. Bigs are mobile and can hit the 3. Defenses switch. You see less Haseem Thabeets and more Omari Spellman’s. Should we revert to that style of play at our detriment?

Can we all just stop with the comparisons to the old Big East and the ACC? We are not those conferences and prob will never be to that level, ever. In the old BE G’town, SJU, Nova, Cuse, PC, SHU, L’ville, UConn, and WVU all made FF’s. That’s insane. The current ACC is just such a deep and complete conference from top to bottom. We are not them either. But we are a damn good conference with 9.5 teams committed to hoops first. We’ll hover around the 2nd-6th best conference for the foreseeable future, just like we have since inception 5 years ago. There exists no metric that can prove otherwise.

Agree with Gumby...and add that the college game hasn't changed just in the Big East conference, it's changed for everyone. There are no Ewings (except the coach!), Olajuwons, Motumbos, etc. Schools, starting with high school (or even younger), have gotten away from that style of basketball in favor of the run and gun that is more "fun" for the kids. Have you watched any of those high school games on TV? There are always some 7 footers, but they are not playing the traditional "center" position that many of us grew up watching. Some of this can be attributed to the 3 point line. Some can be attributed to trying to appeal to kids who want to run and gun.

As far as the doom and gloom, this is what college basketball will continue to look like at tournament time. 5 of the top 10, and 10 of the top 20 in the last poll did not survive the first weekend of the tournament. The world is not coming to an end and neither is our conference. I think there are bigger name conferences with more to worry about than us (PAC 12 was 0-3...and the SEC, darlings of the committee this year, have two teams left and their regular season champ was losing 70-29 at one point yesterday).

What happened the first weekend of the tournament is why the tournament is so popular. Sucks that we were on the short end of games I thought we would win...but imagine being a fan of Virginia, UNC, Arizona, WCC, Tennessee, Cincy and Michigan St. Fans of those schools had legitimate reason to think their schools could make the final four, or even win it all, too.

[ArmyVet]

Disappointing? Yes.

Shocking? No.

The expectation for most was that Nova and XU would advance as #1 seeds, so that's the issue. But XU made the Elite 8 as an 11(?) seed last year, so I will suggest to you that over time the law of averages will win.