USA Predicts . . .

[stever20]

If the Big East continues to put 4 (out of 10) teams in the tournament, is that a success or failure?

I think that depends upon how you look at it. The Old Big East got around 50-55% of their teams into the tournament in its last few years. 40% is lower than that, certainly, but consider... in the Old Big East there were 15 or 16 teams. There was no round robin scheduling and there were more wins to be had in conference. Looking at it that way, I don't think I would call 4 out of 10 a failure, but I wouldn't call it a smashing success either. If we could get 5 teams consistently into the Big Dance, I would call it a big success. To do that, though, every team has to step up their OOC Schedule and get those quality wins before Big East play starts. That will boost not only individual teams chances, but the league's SOS and RPI, too.

As good as getting the OOC quality wins- just as important is avoiding the OOC losses period. Teams just don't make the tourney in 2014 with only 18 or 19 wins like they did 15 years ago. That's one thing that killed us last year- going into conference play- had a lot of teams with at least 3 losses- all but Nova, Creighton, and Butler.

[hoyahooligan]

I think 4 is the least amount of teams we get in yearly. So I think that's the over under line. Anything less than that would be failure, anything more than that success. I think going forward we'll be getting 5 in pretty regularly and 6 on occasion.

with the double round robin schedule- getting 5 or 6 is a very difficult thing. Last year was pretty much best case scenario for final league standings- with 5 seed being 10-8 and 6 seed being 9-9. To get 5-6 in, we have to dominate in the OOC schedule. The 5th or 6 seed going 10-8 or 9-9 can't have more than 2 OOC losses and feel comfortable. The #7 Big 12 team got in even with a 8-10 conference record because they were 12-1 OOC.

What makes you think that's so unrealistic. I expect our teams to be good and therefore have very few OOC loses each year. Last year was the first year Georgetown had more than 1 OOC loss in a while and despite a down year still only had 3 OOC loses. I think last year was an aberration in how poorly the conference performed on a whole and that we'll do much better going forward.

Looking at OOC Schedules:

Georgetown should max have 2 OOC loses.
Seton Hall should max have 2 OOC loses
Xavier should go undefeated OOC
Villanova should have Max 1 OOC loss
St. John's should have Max 3 OOC losses
Creighton should have Max 2 OOC losses
Providence should Max have 3 OOC losses
DePaul should Max have 3 OOC losses
Marquette should have max 4 OOC losses
Butler could have as many as 5 OOC losses

obviously some of these may be viewed as optimistic, but only Marquette and Butler have OOC schedules that are harder than their team can handle.

[muskienick]

What makes you think that's so unrealistic. I expect our teams to be good and therefore have very few OOC loses each year. Last year was the first year Georgetown had more than 1 OOC loss in a while and despite a down year still only had 3 OOC loses. I think last year was an aberration in how poorly the conference performed on a whole and that we'll do much better going forward.

Looking at OOC Schedules:

Georgetown should max have 2 OOC loses.
Seton Hall should max have 2 OOC loses
Xavier should go undefeated OOC
Villanova should have Max 1 OOC loss
St. John's should have Max 3 OOC losses
Creighton should have Max 2 OOC losses
Providence should Max have 3 OOC losses
DePaul should Max have 3 OOC losses
Marquette should have max 4 OOC losses
Butler could have as many as 5 OOC losses

obviously some of these may be viewed as optimistic, but only Marquette and Butler have OOC schedules that are harder than their team can handle.

As a Xavier fan, I certainly hope you are spot-on in your prediction for the Muskies in the OOC. I believe XU will suffer a number of losses if only because of the need to acclimate 7 new scholarship players into the system who will don a Muskie jersey for the first time with 6 of them being non-red-shirt freshmen! Only transfer Junior, Remy Abell, has played before in D-1 college games.

[stever20]

I think 4 is the least amount of teams we get in yearly. So I think that's the over under line. Anything less than that would be failure, anything more than that success. I think going forward we'll be getting 5 in pretty regularly and 6 on occasion.

with the double round robin schedule- getting 5 or 6 is a very difficult thing. Last year was pretty much best case scenario for final league standings- with 5 seed being 10-8 and 6 seed being 9-9. To get 5-6 in, we have to dominate in the OOC schedule. The 5th or 6 seed going 10-8 or 9-9 can't have more than 2 OOC losses and feel comfortable. The #7 Big 12 team got in even with a 8-10 conference record because they were 12-1 OOC.

What makes you think that's so unrealistic. I expect our teams to be good and therefore have very few OOC loses each year. Last year was the first year Georgetown had more than 1 OOC loss in a while and despite a down year still only had 3 OOC loses. I think last year was an aberration in how poorly the conference performed on a whole and that we'll do much better going forward.

Looking at OOC Schedules:

Georgetown should max have 2 OOC loses.
Seton Hall should max have 2 OOC loses
Xavier should go undefeated OOC
Villanova should have Max 1 OOC loss
St. John's should have Max 3 OOC losses
Creighton should have Max 2 OOC losses
Providence should Max have 3 OOC losses
DePaul should Max have 3 OOC losses
Marquette should have max 4 OOC losses
Butler could have as many as 5 OOC losses

obviously some of these may be viewed as optimistic, but only Marquette and Butler have OOC schedules that are harder than their team can handle.

thing is even with that. St John's goes 9-9 in conference play. With 3 OOC losses, that's 12 losses. That's square on the bubble.

Also not sure how you can say DePaul max 3 OOC losses when they have Stanford, GW, Oregon St, Colorado, and 2 more games in the Diamond-Head classic. That's 6 possible losses there. Same with someone like Nova- they have VCU, Oregon/Michigan, Illinois, Temple, and Syracuse. To say a max of 1- I don't know if Jay Wright would even say that. So some of these are very optimistic. And even with the optimism, they have it- a 5th/6th seed would be very precarious at best with those OOC losses.

[Bill Marsh]

If the Big East continues to put 4 (out of 10) teams in the tournament, is that a success or failure?

If it's 4 but the seeds are what this is- 3,10,10, 12 in PIG that's a failure.

If it's 4 but the seeds are say 2,3, 7, 10- that's a success.

Wins matter,not seeds. If everyone wins their first round games and they get at least 2 teams to the Sweet Sixteen, that's a success regardless of the seeds.

[stever20]

If the Big East continues to put 4 (out of 10) teams in the tournament, is that a success or failure?

If it's 4 but the seeds are what this is- 3,10,10, 12 in PIG that's a failure.

If it's 4 but the seeds are say 2,3, 7, 10- that's a success.

Wins matter,not seeds. If everyone wins their first round games and they get at least 2 teams to the Sweet Sixteen, that's a success regardless of the seeds.

But the better the seeds you are the more of a chance of winning those games.
3 seed- 102-18 in rd of 64 games- and then 61 times advance to the sweet 16.
10 seed- 47-73 in rd of 64 games- and then 22 times advance to the sweet 16.

to act like seeds don't matter is frankly a joke. If you are the better seeds, you have more of a chance to actually win.

[hoyahooligan]

What makes you think that's so unrealistic. I expect our teams to be good and therefore have very few OOC loses each year. Last year was the first year Georgetown had more than 1 OOC loss in a while and despite a down year still only had 3 OOC loses. I think last year was an aberration in how poorly the conference performed on a whole and that we'll do much better going forward.

Looking at OOC Schedules:

Georgetown should max have 2 OOC loses.
Seton Hall should max have 2 OOC loses
Xavier should go undefeated OOC
Villanova should have Max 1 OOC loss
St. John's should have Max 3 OOC losses
Creighton should have Max 2 OOC losses
Providence should Max have 3 OOC losses
DePaul should Max have 3 OOC losses
Marquette should have max 4 OOC losses
Butler could have as many as 5 OOC losses

obviously some of these may be viewed as optimistic, but only Marquette and Butler have OOC schedules that are harder than their team can handle.

thing is even with that. St John's goes 9-9 in conference play. With 3 OOC losses, that's 12 losses. That's square on the bubble.

Also not sure how you can say DePaul max 3 OOC losses when they have Stanford, GW, Oregon St, Colorado, and 2 more games in the Diamond-Head classic. That's 6 possible losses there. Same with someone like Nova- they have VCU, Oregon/Michigan, Illinois, Temple, and Syracuse. To say a max of 1- I don't know if Jay Wright would even say that. So some of these are very optimistic. And even with the optimism, they have it- a 5th/6th seed would be very precarious at best with those OOC losses.

For DePaul ( was using the ESPN schedules so obviously didn't show future opponents in tournaments, knew most of the other teams tournaments, but forgot about diamond head. The 3 I predicted for them were Stanford, GW, and Colorado.

For Nova: VCU, Michigan, and Syracuse will be a challenge but Nova is a top 10 team so should win at least 2 of those 3 at worst. I don't see Illinois or Temple who was horrible last year troubling them.

[stever20]

For Nova- game with Temple(who is supposed to be much improve)- is a rivalry type game- so anything can happen there.... I wouldn't say it'd be bad if Nova lost 2 of 3 to VCU, Michigan, and Syracuse- that's 3 top 20 teams likely if not better. Top 10 team could easily do that. Just saying that saying 1 Max for Nova is probably a bit unreasonable for them- if they lost 2 it's not the end of the world there....

[R to the OB]

I think 4 is the least amount of teams we get in yearly. So I think that's the over under line. Anything less than that would be failure, anything more than that success. I think going forward we'll be getting 5 in pretty regularly and 6 on occasion.

with the double round robin schedule- getting 5 or 6 is a very difficult thing. Last year was pretty much best case scenario for final league standings- with 5 seed being 10-8 and 6 seed being 9-9. To get 5-6 in, we have to dominate in the OOC schedule. The 5th or 6 seed going 10-8 or 9-9 can't have more than 2 OOC losses and feel comfortable. The #7 Big 12 team got in even with a 8-10 conference record because they were 12-1 OOC.

What makes you think that's so unrealistic. I expect our teams to be good and therefore have very few OOC loses each year. Last year was the first year Georgetown had more than 1 OOC loss in a while and despite a down year still only had 3 OOC loses. I think last year was an aberration in how poorly the conference performed on a whole and that we'll do much better going forward.

Looking at OOC Schedules:

Georgetown should max have 2 OOC loses.
Seton Hall should max have 2 OOC loses
Xavier should go undefeated OOC
Villanova should have Max 1 OOC loss
St. John's should have Max 3 OOC losses
Creighton should have Max 2 OOC losses
Providence should Max have 3 OOC losses
DePaul should Max have 3 OOC losses
Marquette should have max 4 OOC losses
Butler could have as many as 5 OOC losses

obviously some of these may be viewed as optimistic, but only Marquette and Butler have OOC schedules that are harder than their team can handle.

For Creighton most fans are predicting somewhere between 2 and 4 OOC losses. I personally think it is possible that we could go undefeated, but I see 3 losses as the most likely scenario.

[hoyahooligan]

For Creighton most fans are predicting somewhere between 2 and 4 OOC losses. I personally think it is possible that we could go undefeated, but I see 3 losses as the most likely scenario.

Might have underestimated, not sure who's in your tournament either, but I didn't think it was anyone good. I saw @ Nebraska and vs. Oklahoma as the two losses. I suppose @ Tulsa too, so probably should've said 3 instead of 2, but again I'm saying should for all of these comparing who they're playing vs. how good I think the team is. So while for instance keeping with Creighton they could loose to Ole Miss, I expect them to be good enough to win that game.