Stop With The Villanova Embarrassed The Big East

[warriorfan4life]

SJU fans, understood, I will take redmen.com with a grain of salt. Is there other sites you recommend though? Again, about once a week, and about once a month in the offseason, I like to check out other Big East members boards to get a feel about recruiting, etc.

Villanova's board, vusports.com is a little bit of a joke, but the pay board is filled with guys who really know what they are talking about. Usually get some very good recruiting info on there as well. So with that being said, I know vusports.com's payboard is legit, meanwhile the free board is an embarrassment filled with trolls and guys trying to be funny.

First off, Nova has had a great season and has nothing to be ashamed about. They just had an uncharacteristically bad game at a terribly inopportune time. Love Jay Wright and hope that Wojo can bring that type of sustained strong results and excellent representation of the school and program at Marquette.

I check on the other teams boards fairly often whenever big news hits and/or is rumored to be happening. Johnny Jungle is a solid St. John's forum with a solid mix of posters and insights. I have been checking there recently to see if any Lavin news hits (really hope that their administration has the resolve to move on Lavin and make the commitment needed to a top young coach as his replacement).

[stever20]

I think the 1 criticism of Villanova/Wright is his overreliance of 3 pointers.... What's the old saying, you live by the 3, you die by the 3. Very applicable here.

For the season Nova shot 38.9% from 3 point range- #20 in the country. 42.9% of their fg attempts were 3's(#22 in the country). In 3 games though they lost they were 21/75 or 28%. 85 2 point attempts in those 3 losses.
Last year they shot 35.6% from 3 point range- #118 in the country. 44.8% of their fg attempts were 3's(#7 in the country). In 5 games they lost they were 46-132. 135 2 pt attempts.

So last 2 years they've lost 8 games. Taken 207 3 pointers in those 8 games, along with 210 2's. That's relying way too much on 3's.

[ChestRockwell85]

stever, great post. You live by it, you die by it. I love Jay but wish he would mix it up more on offense when the shots aren't falling.

[RDinNY]

Redmen.com and johnny jungle are the two St. John's boards. Like anywhere else, both are full of sane ones and crazies.

[Noonzy]

Both Providence boards have nothing but respect for Nova. Tough loss, but the shooters got cold on the same night. I had them going to the finals on two sheets. The league is only 2 years old. We'll get there to shut up these idiots from the P5. Remember the ACC had 4 teams crap themselves last year. Don't forget-'Cuse is in a world of hurt for the next four years minimum. The hammer should strike the Tar Heels after the tourney. Duke is in some trouble and Miami isn't that far off. We are just beginning fellow BE members.

[redmen9194]

You know what's interesting? If you go on any of the Nova boards, most posters blame the Big East for Nova losing in the second round. The talk is Nova isn't challenged enough to be ready for the Tourny. They need to schedule top ACC schools. So there you go.

[Jet915]

Yeah, cause NC State is heads and shoulders above all the other Big East teams .

[stever20]

the one thing that you could make a case on NC State being more ready for the tourney than Villanova is the fact that NC State has to play more teams in conference play- thus seeing more styles of play. I know we used to always say that same thing when we had 16 teams in the Big East. I do think it helps when you have little time to prepare to be able to say hey this team is just like conference opponent X and have a decent plan of attack based off of that.

[Steve Lavin]

There's some famous scientist or philosopher who once said "The simplest explanation is often the best explanation". Well, I think that applies here. The simplest explanation is that Nova had a fantastic season and simply had a cold shooting night at the wrong time. It happens all the time. What is hilarious (and sad) to me is how the media was just ITCHING to throw rocks at us. They were all loaded up ready to bash us, but we shut them up for the entire season with a great OOC performance and 70% of our teams were ranked at one point. Then they waited for us to fail in the tourney. We go 4-0 to start. They have to hold their rocks longer...it was killing them...the itch was so strong. Then down goes SJU (with no Obekpa and no bench). Down goes PC (even though Dayton had a home game as an 11 seed). Down goes G'Town (by a few points). Down goes Butler (by a few pts to the ACC champ). Then finally, down goes Nova (by a few points on a cold shooting night). The media then joyously without hesitation launched their rocks at us. They were celebrating.

I can totally understand the criticism if these games were all blowouts by 20 points where it wasn't even close. The truth is that SJU had no shot with no Obekpa. None. And people mostly knew that unless we shot 70% from 3 and SDSU had the basketball gods turn them into Duke instead of Brick City as they were all season. We were down a major key player and they chucked and prayed. And the gods answered for them. The PC game can also be explained. An 11 seed getting home court advantage? That is absurdity. Yes PC came out soft, but you can't say it didn't have an effect. Dayton is known to draw huge crowds. All the other games were literally just decided by a few points. What I don't understand is how critics can take those games and say "The F5 is on a different level". If a team takes you wire to wire, how are they on a different level? If anything the close games PROVE we are right there. Instead of the story being that underdog Butler took ACC champ ND right down to the last second, the narrative is that the Big East sucks and the ACC rules. It's mind-boggling.

Interesting how 1 seed Kansas goes down but the Big 12 won't be criticized. Same with Iowa State. The point is that the NCAA tourney is 50% talent and 50% pure old school luck. Another thing I've noticed is that even though it's not the Big East, plenty of non F5 schools are proving they can hang with and beat F5 teams. Wichita State, Dayton, VCU, Gonzaga, etc. So they are proof you can still play with the big boys and there really isn't much of a dropoff. But the media won't say that.

I'm just so sick of the double standards. Nova is an elite program in every way. They had 1 bad game at a terrible time. OH WELL! They will be fine and so will our conference. If the Big 12 and ACC are allowed to crap the bed some years, we should be afforded the same. We started off 4-0 1 season removed when we couldn't even make the 2nd round. It's all cyclical. It's all luck. We are still early in the conference and many teams are coming off years where they lost great players. Let our teams replenish and see where we are. I think the regular season says much more about a conference's performance than NCAA performance. Much bigger sample size and you can't luck your way into a 21 win season. You can however luck your way to a championship like UConn or luck your way to a Final Four like G. Mason. Relax people. It will be fine. Just realize the media is not on our side.

[stever20]

The problem is Lavin is college basketball, like it or not, is a 1 month season now. March. Until we can make noise consistently in March, we aren't going to be viewed as good as we should. Also March impacts how teams are ranked the following year. Big Time.

Also you had 1 thing wrong- Kansas was a 2 seed, not a 1.

Also, I don't think the media really celebrated our losing anywhere near as much as you say. I really haven't seen much of it at all. Even with Nova's lost- I've been pretty surprised at how little bashing there's been.