Seton Hall

[gtmoBlue]

I think last night showcased pretty much exactly what Seton Hall is. They have several very talented players, each of whom is capable of carrying the offense. However, as a team they continuously shoot themselves in the foot and as a result will likely continue to beat themselves in games they should win. The Pirates are among the worst teams in the country in both turnover rate and free throw shooting. With everything else they have going for them, if they could protect the ball and knock down free throws at even a slightly below average rate, they'd easily be a top 25 team. However, if they don't get these 2 glaring issues fixed quickly, they may find themselves headed to the NIT.

Both you and Westbrook talked irt TO's and FT shooting. C'mon SH...git to work and fix the problems. I picked you guys for 2nd in the league. We can do this.

[Savannah Jay]

Sorry Savannah, you are wrong. The Coach said last night that the league wanted us to play Saturday. Think about it, why would we schedule this game? Play Butler Wed night, play Sat and then fly to X on Sunday. We knew X was going to be trouble, so why not have extra time to prepare for them.

I just listened to his remarks. It has nothing to do with "6 days off" as you suggest. It is because we were the only team in the conference that didn't have a game scheduled Saturday (Georgetown has non-con with UCONN and the other eight are playing league games) and because everyone also plays on Monday. So the league did say it wasn't fair for us to be the only league team to not have to turn around two days later.

[stever20]

Sorry Savannah, you are wrong. The Coach said last night that the league wanted us to play Saturday. Think about it, why would we schedule this game? Play Butler Wed night, play Sat and then fly to X on Sunday. We knew X was going to be trouble, so why not have extra time to prepare for them.

I just listened to his remarks. It has nothing to do with "6 days off" as you suggest. It is because we were the only team in the conference that didn't have a game scheduled Saturday (Georgetown has non-con with UCONN and the other eight are playing league games) and because everyone also plays on Monday. So the league did say it wasn't fair for us to be the only league team to not have to turn around two days later.

right- but that totally flies in the face of what you said that "Creighton is not playing the game Saturday because they have to". No, the league pretty much said that Creighton had to play on Saturday. Didn't care who they played, but that they played someone.

[Savannah Jay]

Sorry Savannah, you are wrong. The Coach said last night that the league wanted us to play Saturday. Think about it, why would we schedule this game? Play Butler Wed night, play Sat and then fly to X on Sunday. We knew X was going to be trouble, so why not have extra time to prepare for them.

I just listened to his remarks. It has nothing to do with "6 days off" as you suggest. It is because we were the only team in the conference that didn't have a game scheduled Saturday (Georgetown has non-con with UCONN and the other eight are playing league games) and because everyone also plays on Monday. So the league did say it wasn't fair for us to be the only league team to not have to turn around two days later.

right- but that totally flies in the face of what you said that "Creighton is not playing the game Saturday because they have to". No, the league pretty much said that Creighton had to play on Saturday. Didn't care who they played, but that they played someone.

I was basing my comments on the previously stated incorrect opinion that Creighton was playing because the league said isn't wasn't fair that they had 6 days off before the X game (CUs off time is only 5 days). That made no sense to me, because every team in the conference has a stretch of at least 5 days between games.

So I actually did some research because I knew the reasoning given was incorrect. Yes, the league is making them do it for reasons that were not previously stated here...that every other team plays both Saturday and Monday. THAT makes sense to me. Just having a few extra days off did not. So, as can happen sometimes, I actually know more now than I did when I made the initial post.

So I was incorrect about the league making them do it, but correct that the reason stated was BS.

See Stever, I actually stated that I was incorrect about something. You should try it sometimes. I am still alive, my dog still loves me, and the Jays are still in the top 10.

Of course, if you did that the number of posts you make here would double...

[jfan]

Savannah, read my post again. I said nothing about "6 days off", only that the league didn't want Creighton to have an unfair advantage in time off. If you are going to call "BS" on reasoning, at least get your facts straight!

[Bill Marsh]

I seriously doubt the league dictated anything regarding Creighton's scheduling of Truman. The Creighton stretch between Butler and Xavier is only 5 days (Wed, Jan 11 to Monday Jan 16). What's more, every team in the league that I looked at has at least one 5 day stretch between games. Xavier has 6 days off after the Creighton game. SJU and Georgetown have one six day stretch as well. Marquette has a week (Feb 11 to Feb 18) between games next month. Villanova has three instances of 5 days between games.

So, to make a short story long, Creighton is not playing the game Saturday because they have to...I assume they had one more game they could schedule, didn't want to put a difficult game in the middle of Butler and X and, as pointed out, chose someone that would amount to a scrimmage where (presumably) some guys other than the top 7 in the rotation will see significant minutes yet wouldn't be an RPI killer.

It was confirmed in a story on ABC News that the league required it. It's a completely ridiculous position for the Big East to take. They were grossly exceeding their authority. Creighton should have refused to comply. I doubt there's anyway the league could have enforced that. What were they going to do if Creighton refused? Expel them from the conference?

[Fieldhouse Flyer]

It was confirmed in a story on ABC News that the league required it. It's a completely ridiculous position for the Big East to take. They were grossly exceeding their authority. Creighton should have refused to comply.

Big East Mandate Means Creighton Plays D2 Foe – Associate Press / ABC News – January 12, 2017

The analytics website KenPom.com gives the Bluejays a 100 percent chance of beating their Division II opponent from Kirksville, Missouri.

How does a game like this happen?

Blame the Big East.

The conference set up the made-for-TV "Big East Marathon" for Monday, Martin Luther King Day, and all 10 teams are participating. Five league games will be played in succession from early afternoon to late at night, all televised by FS1.

On Saturday, eight teams are playing conference games, and Georgetown meets UConn in a nonconference matchup full of memories of the old Big East. Creighton, which played Butler on Wednesday, initially was to have an open date Saturday. But the Big East told the Bluejays to find a game so they wouldn't get more rest than its Monday road opponent, Xavier, which is playing at Butler on Saturday.

"They were not going to allow us to be the only team to have an off day going in and playing a team that had one day of prep," Creighton coach Greg McDermott said. "We had the building open, so we were able to do it."

Big East spokesman John Paquette confirmed there was a mandate.

Big East Staff Directory . . . Big East Bylaws

John Paquette - Associate Commissioner, Sports Media Relations – E-mail: jpaquette@bigeast.com

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I doubt there's anyway the league could have enforced that. What were they going to do if Creighton refused? Expel them from the conference?

It appears that the Big East is not familiar with its own Bylaws. The Big East’s mandate for Creighton to play Truman State was void ab initio.

[stever20]

my feeling if Creighton had not done it was that the Big East would have altered it's schedule, and forced Creighton to have a conference game that day. Creighton probably knew that so they found someone.

In the future, the league will probably tell all 10 teams no OOC games that day and everyone would be forced to play before the actual marathon.

[Jet915]

The league dictated that we play Sat so that we didn't have an unfair advantage of extra time off. We couldn't find a decent D1 game as everyone is in conference play and we didn't want an RPI killer, so we scheduled Truman (won't count against RPI). Oh well! Won't be 18000 at that game!!

Not so fast, Truman game is sold out.

[Barley]

my feeling if Creighton had not done it was that the Big East would have altered it's schedule, and forced Creighton to have a conference game that day. Creighton probably knew that so they found someone.

In the future, the league will probably tell all 10 teams no OOC games that day and everyone would be forced to play before the actual marathon.

8 teams play conference games. The issue is that Georgetown plays UCONN. If they wanted Creighton to play a game on Saturday maybe they should have told Georgetown to reschedule UCONN.