It will be a successful 1st year in the NBE if my team...

[Dave]

Been reading this for a while but never posted before. Anyway, I was intrigued by this debate and decided to throw my 2 cents in.

In terms of having a successful overall body of work, the regular season is obviously far more important. If my team could have a great run in one of the 2, but fall short of the title (say, 2nd place) I'd prefer the regular season because it shows sustained success and would most likely mean an NCAA Tournament bid.

However, when it comes to winning the championship- lifting the trophy- the story changes. The prestige of the two trophies (at least in my opinion) isn't comparable.

The question I ask is: Which championship has the bigger gap between 1st and 2nd place?

It's the tournament-- If you win- You're the champion. You're celebrating in MSG on national TV. You're guaranteed a spot in the NCAA Tournament and a shot at the National Championship regardless of what you did pre-tournament, even if you didn't win a single game. If you come in 2nd place- nothing. You're the first loser- that's all.

In the regular season-- If you win- You won a lot of games, finished with a great (in-conference at least) record, you get a trophy, celebrate maybe in front of your own fans, maybe in another schools gym. The season may or may not even actually be over. You're probably going to the NCAA Tournament. If you come in 2nd place- You won a lot of games, finished with a great (in-conference at least) record. You're probably still going to the NCAA Tournament, and you still have a Big East Championship to play for at the Garden. The same thing pretty much goes for 3rd and probably 4th place.

If my team, Seton Hall, finished in 2nd place during the Big East regular season by 1 game, I'd still be really happy. If they lost in the Championship Game of the Big East Tournament, I'd be crushed.

exactly. post more.

[Hall2012]

I see where you are coming from and I agree with most of what you said, but what if you won the regular season and lost the BET Championship game. Would you still be crushed or just be disappointed? I see why everyone loves the BET, and I love it as well. It's a few days on National television to potentially win the best tourney in America. The regular season is a long long time so the excitement is there, but it isn't the same rush as playing back to back to back days from the BET Championship. I think the regular season means so much to some fans, myself included, is because if you have a great year you know you're going dancing. And yes the BET is awesome and I would love if my team won, but if my team, Marquette, won the BE regular season and the BET Championship and lost in the first (second?? w/e it is) I'd be crushed and consider it a disappointing season. That's just my opinion, but at the end of the day America cares about who performs in the NCAA tournament and not their conference tournament. The BE may view this differently but not the rest of America. People are going to remember Georgetown losing to FGCU in the first round not that they won a share of the BE regular season or how they did in the BE tourney. When journalists and "experts" talk about college basketball they talk about how they performed in the NCAA tourney and not the conference tournament. When people talk about the best programs of the history of the NCAA they talk about how they performed in the NCAA tournament. When I talk to my KU friends they don't talk about their 12 straight (i believe) conference championships, they talk about their 14 final fours and 3 championships. I hope Marquette can win the BE regular season and the BET, but at the end of the day I want to go deep in the tourney.

Actually, if my team won the Big East regular season then lost in the BET final, I'd probably be more crushed than if they didn't win the regular season because in that case I'd feel like they were the best team all year and now I have to watch someone else lift the trophy. Yeah, we'd have a trophy too, that pretty much looks exactly the same, but it just isn't. The prestige isn't the same. I 100% believe that the Big East Tournament Championship is the 2nd most prestigious trophy in college hoops behind the National Championship- over the NIT, any other conference (although the ACC may argue with that after realignment), and any pre-season tourney. It's an honor to be one the 10 schools that have the opportunity to compete for it going forward.

Now, I do agree that the NCAA Tournament is the measuring stick of success, but I don't believe that there's any trade off between BET success and NCAA Tournament success. The Big East title game is Saturday, and unless the champ gets a play-in game, they have almost a week off before their first NCAA Tournament game. If they go down early it's because they weren't prepared. The "conference tournament hangover" is just an excuse.

[TheDon]

I am afraid that if we get less than five teams into the NCAA tournament that we will be labeled as a failure. What we need is 5+ teams, a couple in the Sweet 16, and preferably one deeper run.

[hoyahooligan]

I am afraid that if we get less than five teams into the NCAA tournament that we will be labeled as a failure. What we need is 5+ teams, a couple in the Sweet 16, and preferably one deeper run.

I'd be shocked if the BE got less than 5 bids. I feel like we'll get 5 or 6 bids, but yes we do need to get at least 2 sweet 16 participants and 1 elite 8 for it to be a successful season for the conference.

[boyonthedock]

as far as Marquette fans feelings about the BE tourney, it is because of the history of the school. It comes down to a couple of key points that manifest in the mind of the Marquette Fan.

1. Lack of Conference tournament history
MU has only been conference affiliated for less than 25 years. They simply haven't been in enough of them for them to gain significance. Marquette's glory years, unlike the rest of the BE holdovers, predate conference affiliation.
2. Lack of success in Conference tournaments
MU has only won one conference tourney, CUSA's in 1997, and ended in a first round exit, which leads me to...
3. NCAA tournament legacy of regular season champions
MU has won the regular season championship 3 times, and those teams all went on to be very successful in the NCAAs. The 1994 team got to the sweet sixteen for the first time since the glory days in the 70s. The 2003 team went to the final four, and the regular season title clinching game was the last time MU fans have stormed home court, a cherished memory for many MU faithful. And last years team went on to the elite eight, a good year by most measurements.

Simply put, the regular season championship has meant something to Marquette in the past, and a Tourney championship just hasn't. Now, if Marquette were to start winning these things and then going to final fours after finishing like 3rd in conference, we may see a change of heart.