First week of league play

[anXUfan]

My thoughts:

Great opportunities for butler, creighton and georgetown to enter the national trankings conversation.
I think butler beats nova (giving nova 2 consecutive road losses before they win against providence). Butler will probably be underdogs at xavier, but a win there would show they are a real tourney team.
Creighton has the easy game against the hall, but must beat marquette.
Georgetown has the easy game against depaul, but must beat marquette.

At this point I am looking for teams to distinguish themselves rather than be top to bottom strong. I want butler and creighton to beat xavier and marquette. Butler and creighton have a chance to be ranked, marquette and xavier are already considered mediocre and their beating of our better teams doesn't help.

The johnnies and providence need to split their games to stay in the discussion. Each has a game they should win, but each has a game they should lose.

We should all be rooting for depaul and seton hall to lose every game. A win against anybody else hurts the conference. We want more top 50 and top 100 teams in the conference, and the hall and depaul can be our sacrificial lambs.

Nova is probably going to drop 2 straight, and slip to 15'ish in the polls. They will bounce back though.

Not sure why you're so down on Xavier. If they beat Wake on Saturday they'll be 4-3 against peer conferences with no bad losses, a 10-3 non-conference record, and decent Pomeroy and RPI ratings.

[XUFan09]

My thoughts:

Great opportunities for butler, creighton and georgetown to enter the national trankings conversation.
I think butler beats nova (giving nova 2 consecutive road losses before they win against providence). Butler will probably be underdogs at xavier, but a win there would show they are a real tourney team.
Creighton has the easy game against the hall, but must beat marquette.
Georgetown has the easy game against depaul, but must beat marquette.

At this point I am looking for teams to distinguish themselves rather than be top to bottom strong. I want butler and creighton to beat xavier and marquette. Butler and creighton have a chance to be ranked, marquette and xavier are already considered mediocre and their beating of our better teams doesn't help.

The johnnies and providence need to split their games to stay in the discussion. Each has a game they should win, but each has a game they should lose.

We should all be rooting for depaul and seton hall to lose every game. A win against anybody else hurts the conference. We want more top 50 and top 100 teams in the conference, and the hall and depaul can be our sacrificial lambs.

Nova is probably going to drop 2 straight, and slip to 15'ish in the polls. They will bounce back though.

Not sure why you're so down on Xavier. If they beat Wake on Saturday they'll be 4-3 against peer conferences with no bad losses, a 10-3 non-conference record, and decent Pomeroy and RPI ratings.

This is the same guy that said Xavier lost to Alabama, so I don't know how well he's really paying attention.

[GumbyDamnit!]

My thoughts:

I think butler beats nova (giving nova 2 consecutive road losses before they win against providence). Butler will probably be underdogs at xavier, but a win there would show they are a real tourney team.

Nova is probably going to drop 2 straight, and slip to 15'ish in the polls. They will bounce back though.

I think they split these two games. Win at Syracuse and I would bet heavy on Butler. Lose at Syracuse and I think Jay will have them fired up to play at Hinkle. But you seem rather confident that Nova will "probably" lose both. For a team with a Top 5 RPI/BPI etc., that has played a fairly decent schedule, and won its games by an average of 15+ pts., I'm not sure how you feel that confident in them dropping both.

[Jet915]

My thoughts:

Great opportunities for butler, creighton and georgetown to enter the national trankings conversation.
I think butler beats nova (giving nova 2 consecutive road losses before they win against providence). Butler will probably be underdogs at xavier, but a win there would show they are a real tourney team.
Creighton has the easy game against the hall, but must beat marquette.
Georgetown has the easy game against depaul, but must beat marquette.

At this point I am looking for teams to distinguish themselves rather than be top to bottom strong. I want butler and creighton to beat xavier and marquette. Butler and creighton have a chance to be ranked, marquette and xavier are already considered mediocre and their beating of our better teams doesn't help.

The johnnies and providence need to split their games to stay in the discussion. Each has a game they should win, but each has a game they should lose.

We should all be rooting for depaul and seton hall to lose every game. A win against anybody else hurts the conference. We want more top 50 and top 100 teams in the conference, and the hall and depaul can be our sacrificial lambs.

Nova is probably going to drop 2 straight, and slip to 15'ish in the polls. They will bounce back though.

I generally agree with this, there needs to be a clear separation between top 5-6 teams and bottom 4-5 teams. In order to maximize bids, Villanova cannot win the league title, they need to lose 5-6 games or more in league play so other teams can profit from their awesome RPI. Marquette is the other worry, they have potential and if they run through the league winning 12 or more games, they will hurt all the other Big East teams because their non-conference was so bad. Lastly, DePaul and Seton Hall losing all their games wouldn't hurt either.

[Hall2012]

My thoughts:

Great opportunities for butler, creighton and georgetown to enter the national trankings conversation.
I think butler beats nova (giving nova 2 consecutive road losses before they win against providence). Butler will probably be underdogs at xavier, but a win there would show they are a real tourney team.
Creighton has the easy game against the hall, but must beat marquette.
Georgetown has the easy game against depaul, but must beat marquette.

At this point I am looking for teams to distinguish themselves rather than be top to bottom strong. I want butler and creighton to beat xavier and marquette. Butler and creighton have a chance to be ranked, marquette and xavier are already considered mediocre and their beating of our better teams doesn't help.

The johnnies and providence need to split their games to stay in the discussion. Each has a game they should win, but each has a game they should lose.

We should all be rooting for depaul and seton hall to lose every game. A win against anybody else hurts the conference. We want more top 50 and top 100 teams in the conference, and the hall and depaul can be our sacrificial lambs.

Nova is probably going to drop 2 straight, and slip to 15'ish in the polls. They will bounce back though.

Underestimate teams at your own risk in this conference. I wouldn't be shocked at all if either Seton Hall or DePaul picks up a win this first weekend, especially if Gibbs returns for the Hall.

[GumbyDamnit!]

Underestimate teams at your own risk in this conference. I wouldn't be shocked at all if either Seton Hall or DePaul picks up a win this first weekend, especially if Gibbs returns for the Hall.

Agree. I see both DePaul and SHU getting about 5, maybe 6 wins each. I think DePaul is just better this year. And SHU may lose to a bad team here and there but have enough talent to make things uncomfortable for other teams who think they are a cupcake. They'll both knock some teams off this year IMO.

[NewBigEastConf]

My full submission would be:

12/31
Xavier
Providence
Georgetown
Butler
Creighton

1/4
Butler
Georgetown
Marquette
Creighton

1/5
Villanova

Standings would be:

Butler 2-0
Creighton 2-0
Georgetown 2-0
Villanova 1-1
Marquette 1-1
Xavier 1-1
Providence 1-1
DePaul 0-2
Seton Hall 0-2
St Johns 0-2

[Jet915]

Coaches excited about New Year's Eve marathon.

http://www.bigeast.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/122613aaa.html

[NJRedman]

I love it! Not one single person (Outside of SJU fans) is picking the Johnnies to win a single game this first week! Man you guys are in for a shock! Let's get this going, i'm all ready for this NYE. I'm probably going to just stay in and watch BBall all day long!

Go Johnnies!

[XUFan09]

I love it! Not one single person (Outside of SJU fans) is picking the Johnnies to win a single game this first week! Man you guys are in for a shock! Let's get this going, i'm all ready for this NYE. I'm probably going to just stay in and watch BBall all day long!

Go Johnnies!

Actually, a Xavier fan picked SJU over Georgetown. Still, is it really that revelatory that people are generally picking the home team unless it's DePaul/Seton Hall or the road team is Villanova? St. John's plays its first week on the road; it's that simple. If that's somehow worthy of having a chip on your shoulder, though, go right ahead. Personally, I'm happy that Xavier is starting the conference schedule at home .