the path to 5 conference bids

[shupat08]

It's really amazing how people are talking here... Yes 5 bids is what we want... But when we were creating the league was also wanted the "best schools possible"... So when you get the "best schools possible" plus the BE7... you were likely to get a bunch of equal teams... Too bad, so sad... Teams aren't going to tank the season. Deal with it everyone.

[Jet915]

It's really amazing how people are talking here... Yes 5 bids is what we want... But when we were creating the league was also wanted the "best schools possible"... So when you get the "best schools possible" plus the BE7... you were likely to get a bunch of equal teams... Too bad, so sad... Teams aren't going to tank the season. Deal with it everyone.

No one is telling a team to tank, we just want the teams that sucked during OOC to continue to play like crap during league play, that's all

[Hall2012]

Who said nova is running away with the league?

I think the best thing would be for nova and creighton to lose 3-5 games to teams like xavier and butler (or st john's).

What we don't want is creighton and nova losing to seton hall or providence or depaul or marquette (or the odd man out between xavier/butler/st john's)

Why not? Suppose Seton Hall beat Creighton this weekend? That potentially jumps them close to if not back in to the rpi top 100. Now that loss that "ended Providence's season" isn't a bad loss at all. This conference can realistically get 8 or 9 teams into the top 100. For potential tournament teams, picking up 9 or 10 wins against RPI top 100 teams is more impressive than 1 or 2 wins over top 25 teams and 8 or 9 wins against rpi 150-200 teams. When teams are considered for the NCAA Tournament, they're judged by their whole body of work. A pair of top 25 wins doesn't guarantee a team a tournament spot and plenty of teams find themselves dancing every year despite a bad loss or 2.

[Bluejay]

This is a bit off topic, but i haven't seen it mentioned anywhere ---

Creighton's athletic director will be on this year's NCAA selection committee. That has to help, right?

[JOPO]

Seton Hall would never accept a bid to the CBI. They've turned that down a couple of times before. Who wants to pay to play in a postseason tournament that takes teams with losing records? NCAA is always the goal with NIT as a consolation prize for the Pirates. They will never play in the CBI, I guarantee it.

I wish they would get rid of the CBI. This isn't college football where mediocrity is rewarded and everyone gets a bowl bid.

After Xavier didn't get an NIT invite last year, they turned down CBI and CIT invites. There are only two tournaments worth the time in college basketball, one for champions and one for pretty good teams that didn't quite make the cut.

Exactly! Our fans wouldn't show up for CBI or CIT games. We don't get excited about rewarding disappointing seasons. Like I said, NCAA is always the goal and the NIT is better than nothing. CBI and CIT are worse than nothing.

[JOPO]

This is a bit off topic, but i haven't seen it mentioned anywhere ---

Creighton's athletic director will be on this year's NCAA selection committee. That has to help, right?

Would be nice but when the topic of a conference member comes up I think they have to leave the room.

[Friarfan2]

In a perfect kumaya moment, our entire conference would do okay and we would all be top 100 teams (at the expense of having no top 50 teams).

I would rather have 5 top 40 teams and the bottom teams finish in the 120's than a bunch of teams in the 50-100 range. Why? Because having 7 teams 50+ means we are a mid-major 3 bid league.

We need the top 5 to distinguish themselves.

Hey, if seton hall beat fdu, beat mercer, beat st peters, then perhaps we could root for them to be one of those top 5 teams. Before providence tanked their season on nye, I hoped they would be a top half team.

But now we need to look at the greater good. And the greater good means providence and seton hall finish rpi 100-150 while xavier and butler finish in the top 45, rather than have all of them finish in the 60-100 range.

Parity = mediocrity when certain teams failed so bad in the out of conference portion of the schedule.

And this isn't a knock on seton hall. If seton hall won their ooc games, I would root for them. They did this to themselves by losing to real bad teams.

[whiteandblue77]

Bruce Rasmussen, Creighton's AD, is a class act and will represent the Big East very well. He'll be extremely prepared and knowledgeable and he will impress not by politicking but his manner will be good for the conference. I think it's mpossible not to think that his presence (albeit when he is in the room) will help us during the voting process.

[Hall2012]

I'm still missing the part where beating up on bad teams is considered impressive and will get teams into the NCAA Tourney.

[GumbyDamnit!]

There really is a ton of BB left to be played. If PC wins on Sunday at Nova, where do you think that puts them in the grand scheme of things. PC beat us twice last year so I am def not looking ahead of this game.