ESPN "NEW BIG EAST" rankings -jokefest
- Thread starter tim23red
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This new league has a lot going for it, but it needs SJU and Providence to have strong seasons and be legit NCAA tournament teams. Also, Seton Hall and DePaul have to start pulling their weight. These two programs haven't played an important game in a long time. The new arena, in Chicago, might be part of the solution for our brother Vincentians, but the only reason Seton Hall is in this conference is that the other Catholics brought them along out of loyalty. If you were starting this conference from scratch, St. Louis or Dayton would have been chosen ahead of the pirates.
Jeff Goodman @GoodmanESPN 5h
The Big East sent a record 11 teams dancing two years ago, but this is a new era. Here's handicapping the league:http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/jeff-goodman/post?id=201 …
Cwih @cwih34 3h
@GoodmanESPN St. John's finishing 7th what are you smoking. Do you do any research at all? #stjbb
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4:42 PM - 9 Jul 13 (GMT-04:00) · Details
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Jeff Goodman @GoodmanESPN 3h
@cwih34 Where would you have St. John's in preseason poll?
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Cwih @cwih34 3h
@GoodmanESPN whole team coming back bubble before Harrison suspended last year. Additions of Sanchez and rysheed Jordan safe to say 3 or 4
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Jeff Goodman @GoodmanESPN 3h
@cwih34 There isn't much disparity between 1 and 8 to be honest. Could easily make a case for St. John's at 3. Could also make one at 8.
This is purely an ESPN biased and unethical article.
The Big East sent a record 11 teams dancing two years ago, but this is a new era. Here's handicapping the league:http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/jeff-goodman/post?id=201 …
Cwih @cwih34 3h
@GoodmanESPN St. John's finishing 7th what are you smoking. Do you do any research at all? #stjbb
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4:42 PM - 9 Jul 13 (GMT-04:00) · Details
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Reply to @cwih34 @GoodmanESPN
Jeff Goodman @GoodmanESPN 3h
@cwih34 Where would you have St. John's in preseason poll?
Expand
Cwih @cwih34 3h
@GoodmanESPN whole team coming back bubble before Harrison suspended last year. Additions of Sanchez and rysheed Jordan safe to say 3 or 4
Expand
Jeff Goodman @GoodmanESPN 3h
@cwih34 There isn't much disparity between 1 and 8 to be honest. Could easily make a case for St. John's at 3. Could also make one at 8.
This is purely an ESPN biased and unethical article.
STJ11Redmen
Active member
That's actually a pretty fair response. Every team has a case to be ranked higher. The fact of the matter is that we are unproven and some of the other teams are proven. Championships aren't won on a blog in July. I wouldn't sweat any of these articles.
Pleasedontbanmeagain
Member
Air Force: yuck
Boise State: usually yuck except 1 random great year last year and it likely won't last
Colorado State: solid team, but lost by nearly 30 to Louisville in the tourney...clearly not a major conference team...at least SJ, Providence, Xavier, G'Town, Nova, Marquette, etc. would hang with the big boys
Fresno State: yuck
Hawaii: yuck
Nevada: yuck
New Mexico: good team that can actually hang with big boys
SDSU: good team that can hang with big boys, but is almost always vastly overrated in polls
San Jose: yuck
UNLV: good team that can hang with big boys but is also vastly overrated a la SDSU
Utah State: decent team that can crack the top 25 every once in a while but never lasts
Wyoming: yuck
The only MWC teams that would truly scare me are New Mexico, SDSU, and UNLV. After that it's a massive dropoff. We have Nova, G'Town, Marquette, Xavier, St. John's, Creighton, etc. that's at least 6 teams that will be able to hang with anyone in the country any given night. If Providence takes a step up as expected and Butler rebounds from losing Stevens, add 2 more in there. Our league is no joke guys. The fact that the new Big East is still good even as a shadow of its old self should be a testament to just how dominant the old Big East was. I don't know about you guys, but I'd be way more afraid of playing Nova/G'Town/Marquette/Creighton/Xavier than Wyoming/Fresno St/Air Force/Hawaii/SDSU.
Pleasedontbanmeagain
Member
I know I've said this before, but losing Cuse, Pitt, UConn, etc. means we will rarely have top 10 teams anymore, but we will definitely still have 15-25's. What's so wrong with that? We had to get away from the football schools. We assembled the best possible product we could under dire circumstances. As others have said, we should have gotten STL and maybe VCU or Dayton, but I think we assembled a very solid conference here centered around basketball. If SJ is truly back and our production finally starts catching up with our recruiting, we will be media darlings and it will really gain tons of respect for the conference.
Keep in mind no conference can have ALL good teams. Unless you want everyone going 9-9. Remember sports is a zero sum game, if someone is winning that means someone is LOSING. You can't play 5 games and have ALL 10 teams win.
The Big 10 was probably the best conference last year but that doesn't mean that they don't have bottom feeders like PSU, Nebraska and Northwestern. The Big East has been tremendous the last 7 years but they also have had DePaul, Rutgers, SHU, USF as perennial bottom teams. That didn't stop either conference from being great.
Your conference gets defined by how many REALLY good and even GREAT teams you have. That is why it is important for 4-6 teams to be good every year and 2-4 to be EXCEPTIONALLY good every year.
Recruits are still showing interest in BE schools, but that's thanks in part to the exposure these teams have received on ESPN over the years. On any given night, kids, including recruits, could regularly see schools like Georgetown, St. John's, and Marquette, and identify with them. (It's how I came to be a St. John's fan, watching them on network TV back in the early '60s.) My question is: Will Fox Sports have the same reach that ESPN has?, i.e., will it be accessible on most cable outlets across the country, so that potential recruits have the same access to BE teams that they have to other conferences via ESPN? Income from Fox Sports TV is once thing, a good thing, but how many households it reaches is another. I guess what I'm asking is, will enough homes get to watch the BE on Fox?
Perhaps Mr. Goodman is not to impressed with Mr. Lavins oaching ability. As we all know, all the pieces are there for a successful season. There are no excuses with or with out D Lo for our success in this truly inferior ( to what it was ) league. You can say all the positives you want re. recruits in the top 150 etc. but The Big East is Not a superior conference by any means, perhaps no better then a glorified A10. My fear is that once the networks and large arenas see the domination in the marketability of the ACC, Big Ten and potentially the SEC, the exposure of conference teams shall lesson and recruits will look elsewhere. My hope is that the new commissioner is well prepared to deal with this and is a masterfull PR person.
Pleasedontbanmeagain
Member
:huh:
A glorified A-10? Oh brother, here we go again. Call me when an A-10 team can match either of these schools in competitiveness, brand, national recognition, and history: Nova, G'Town, Marquette, Xavier, etc. and arguably St. John's included. Add up the number of NCAA berths and times ranked in the top 25 and the A-10 will pale in comparison to the new Big East. The A-10 is definitely a very good conference, but still not major. In fact I consider it the best mid major conference top to bottom.
You will see random people walking around in Villanova and Georgetown jerseys/shirts. You will not see LaSalle, URI, or Duquense anywhere. There's a reason for that. I'm not saying the A-10 is far off the Big East but there's a clear distinction that we have the better teams. We just took 2 of the best A-10 teams by the way in Xavier and Butler. It's only a matter of time until VCU is poached by someone if they keep up their great program. Let's see how the A-10 can recover losing 2 of their top teams first before crowning them as better than a major conference. George Mason would not even be a known name if you took away their miracle Final Four run that one year. LaSalle shocked people this past year, but don't expect the program to become this big juggernaut anytime soon. They are usually a pretty mediocre team not unlike a Seton Hall. UMass has their occasional years they are solid, but they don't frighten me. St. Joe's went far in the NCAA tourney about 10 years ago I remember them on the cover of SI magazine. But other than that what have they done recently? St. Louis is similar to Creighton IMO...after the current crop of players leave, will they really be that good again? I'd predict they fall back to earth after their studs are gone because they are not recruiting juggernauts. I guess I'd say VCU is the only team I can nearly guarantee would be a consistent contender in our conference from the A-10.
Goodman is a dope... regardless, whether he is right or wrong, SJU will be almost unaffected by the change. We have TWO things NO other team in the country has : 1)NYC - media capital of the world(Trust me, we sure as hell don't need ESPN..lol) ... and 2)MSG - the WORLDS most FAMOUS arena... those two things along with one of the BEST recruiters in the world(Lav) has SJU right where we need to be... 5 years from now there won't even be a discussion as to who is the "flagship" program of the "new" Big East.... Go Redmen!!
postell25
Member
I really not going to get wrapped up in preseason rankings this year. Other than Marquette being the consensus #1 and Seton Hall and DePaul being #9 and #10, I don't see that much difference between 2-8 honestly.
Zagoria has Providence as the preseason #8. It wouldn't surprise me to see them finish as high as 3rd. He has Xavier as #4 and I can easily see them finishing #8.
Zagoria has Providence as the preseason #8. It wouldn't surprise me to see them finish as high as 3rd. He has Xavier as #4 and I can easily see them finishing #8.
Pleasedontbanmeagain
Member
If you look in the comments section of that ESPN article, tons of comments say that SJU is way underrated and should be much better than ESPN predicts. The word is out to lots of people that we are very very dangerous this year. I work with a friend of Sam Sealy (the walk on last year) and he said he keeps hearing SJU is going to be nasty. The hype is starting to permeate...now let's live up to it for once.