(5) Saturday BE Games 2/10/18

[adoraz]

Short term maybe a bad day for the league (although SJU still has a chance at a bid, just no room for error). Long terms? Today was a good day.

These teams like Georgetown and St. John's need to win some of these. The coaches are just starting and need to show recruits they can win. Neither school wants another rebuild and both have a lot of potential.

Also, in St. John's case, their RPI OOC is 15. Their current RPI is 67. So if anything, their losing really helped the league a lot. You can't consider losing to them a bad loss. Ponds being out or injured the majority of the time was a gift to the rest of the teams (aside from Marquette who has to play him both times fully healthy).

[stever20]

Short term maybe a bad day for the league (although SJU still has a chance at a bid, just no room for error). Long terms? Today was a good day.

These teams like Georgetown and St. John's need to win some of these. The coaches are just starting and need to show recruits they can win. Neither school wants another rebuild and both have a lot of potential.

Also, in St. John's case, their RPI OOC is 15. Their current RPI is 67. So if anything, their losing really helped the league a lot. You can't consider losing to them a bad loss. Ponds being out or injured the majority of the time was a gift to the rest of the teams (aside from Marquette who has to play him both times fully healthy).

if St John's made it now- they'd bare minimum need to win out regular season to get to 17-13 and then get a game in the BET. Doing that would give Providence, Marquette both losses that probably kill their chances, and gives Seton Hall yet another loss- if SH loses to both Nova and Xavier- that's 9 conference losses for Seton Hall and puts the Pirates in some danger of missing the tourney should they lose 2 of 3 to DePaul, Providence, and Butler(certainly possible). plus gives Butler another loss at a time where Butler needs wins to try to get out of the 7-8 line. But I'd make the case that short term- today was good for the BE because Nova and Xavier both won solidifying their #1 seeds. X may now be able to lose again to Nova and still get a #1 seed. That's huge.

long term- I 100% agree with you. Georgetown looks so much better than before and St John's looks like they're maybe finally turning the corner.

[herodotus]

Short term maybe a bad day for the league (although SJU still has a chance at a bid, just no room for error). Long terms? Today was a good day.

These teams like Georgetown and St. John's need to win some of these. The coaches are just starting and need to show recruits they can win. Neither school wants another rebuild and both have a lot of potential.

Also, in St. John's case, their RPI OOC is 15. Their current RPI is 67. So if anything, their losing really helped the league a lot. You can't consider losing to them a bad loss. Ponds being out or injured the majority of the time was a gift to the rest of the teams (aside from Marquette who has to play him both times fully healthy).

Looking at it long term, these results give a hint of what a rising Georgetown, St. John's, and maybe DePaul would mean. There's no question about the value of the Georgetown brand. People outside of the league's footprint will tune in to watch a strong Georgetown, in a way that they won't for most of the other schools. There is also no doubt about the value of having strong teams in the league's two largest cities. With that said, all 10 teams can't be great at once. Who falls to the bottom if at least two of the struggling teams rise up? You have to be at least a bit nervous if you're a fan of a team other than Nova, and X. Until SJU beat Nova, those three teams didn't have a single win against the other 7. This was great short term, as those 3 teams were absorbing a huge chunk of the in conference losses, allowing us to have 7 teams in the mix for bids. It will be interesting to see how things play out as the stragglers begin to rise.

[billyjack]

Congrats to DePaul on their blowout win. They were active the entire game, caused turnovers, stayed aggressive, drained shot after shot.

In addition to Cain and Strus, I've noticed their freshman center Reed making some nice plays and grabbing boards. He's skinny as sh-t, so once he bulks up he'll give DePaul 3 more years of great frontcourt play.

I'm kind of in a daze about the game. Lindsey was out with a concussion, and Cartwright and Bullock stil have flu-like symptoms. So i'll attribute yesterday's demolition to that, otherwise I'm ging to be physically ill.

[billyjack]

Also, i just want to watch top level hoops. This season has been a blast so far. I'm never looking to game the system with artificial bids or hoping X loses to Y and looking to manipulate things.

Just enjoy watching amazing Big East hoops and let yhe chips fall where they may.

[NJRedman]

Short term maybe a bad day for the league (although SJU still has a chance at a bid, just no room for error). Long terms? Today was a good day.

These teams like Georgetown and St. John's need to win some of these. The coaches are just starting and need to show recruits they can win. Neither school wants another rebuild and both have a lot of potential.

Also, in St. John's case, their RPI OOC is 15. Their current RPI is 67. So if anything, their losing really helped the league a lot. You can't consider losing to them a bad loss. Ponds being out or injured the majority of the time was a gift to the rest of the teams (aside from Marquette who has to play him both times fully healthy).

Looking at it long term, these results give a hint of what a rising Georgetown, St. John's, and maybe DePaul would mean. There's no question about the value of the Georgetown brand. People outside of the league's footprint will tune in to watch a strong Georgetown, in a way that they won't for most of the other schools. There is also no doubt about the value of having strong teams in the league's two largest cities. With that said, all 10 teams can't be great at once. Who falls to the bottom if at least two of the struggling teams rise up? You have to be at least a bit nervous if you're a fan of a team other than Nova, and X. Until SJU beat Nova, those three teams didn't have a single win against the other 7. This was great short term, as those 3 teams were absorbing a huge chunk of the in conference losses, allowing us to have 7 teams in the mix for bids. It will be interesting to see how things play out as the stragglers begin to rise.

If those 3 rise up look for Marquette, Seton Hall and Providence to fill that void at the bottom. Wojo is struggling, Willard was never that great of a coach and Cooley can't always win with a short line up year after year.

[Jet915]

Bad loss for the friars. Lindsey out with a concussion and both Bullock and Cartwright playing with the flu hurt their chances. Diallo had one of his worst games this year. Next man up as the schedule gets more difficult.

Are PC players against the flu shot or something? Seems like they've had the flu several times....

[adoraz]

Short term maybe a bad day for the league (although SJU still has a chance at a bid, just no room for error). Long terms? Today was a good day.

These teams like Georgetown and St. John's need to win some of these. The coaches are just starting and need to show recruits they can win. Neither school wants another rebuild and both have a lot of potential.

Also, in St. John's case, their RPI OOC is 15. Their current RPI is 67. So if anything, their losing really helped the league a lot. You can't consider losing to them a bad loss. Ponds being out or injured the majority of the time was a gift to the rest of the teams (aside from Marquette who has to play him both times fully healthy).

if St John's made it now- they'd bare minimum need to win out regular season to get to 17-13 and then get a game in the BET. Doing that would give Providence, Marquette both losses that probably kill their chances, and gives Seton Hall yet another loss- if SH loses to both Nova and Xavier- that's 9 conference losses for Seton Hall and puts the Pirates in some danger of missing the tourney should they lose 2 of 3 to DePaul, Providence, and Butler(certainly possible). plus gives Butler another loss at a time where Butler needs wins to try to get out of the 7-8 line. But I'd make the case that short term- today was good for the BE because Nova and Xavier both won solidifying their #1 seeds. X may now be able to lose again to Nova and still get a #1 seed. That's huge.

long term- I 100% agree with you. Georgetown looks so much better than before and St John's looks like they're maybe finally turning the corner.

Eh I personally think due to Pond's injury they could afford one more regular season loss and MAYBE make it. The selection committee takes into account how you finish, RPI, close losses, big wins, injuries, and more that would help SJU. Right now their RPI is 63 on ESPN, worse elsewhere. Believe it or not, the RPI is just one below Marquette's. I don't think SJU will win 4/5 or 5/5 anyways, so I don't want to derail this thread with that. But yes, I agree it'd be really tough and basically no room for error. If you were at CA like I was yesterday, the fans were more excited than I've ever seen them play an unranked team. Last week vs Xavier the arena was literally half empty. If we actually do make it to the point of winning that much, then I'd be happy to debate this more. Would make for an extremely interesting bubble case, but one game at a time.

And yes, I meant to mention Nova and X winning as huge for the league. Sure, if either lost then Creighton/Butler probably would be ranked Monday. However, I think Fox cares more about Villanova/Xavier remaining in the Top 5 rather than having an additional team or two in the Top 25.

[American X]

We cannot help it that officials are huge Xavier fans.

Good luck the rest of the way, Creighton. Foster is definitely a guy who could get you to the second weekend.

[ecasadoSBU]

Short term maybe a bad day for the league (although SJU still has a chance at a bid, just no room for error). Long terms? Today was a good day.

These teams like Georgetown and St. John's need to win some of these. The coaches are just starting and need to show recruits they can win. Neither school wants another rebuild and both have a lot of potential.

Also, in St. John's case, their RPI OOC is 15. Their current RPI is 67. So if anything, their losing really helped the league a lot. You can't consider losing to them a bad loss. Ponds being out or injured the majority of the time was a gift to the rest of the teams (aside from Marquette who has to play him both times fully healthy).

Exactly. What makes a league great and grows the fan base is the feeling that any given year you can bounce back and win the league. It's not good for the Big East long-term if teams are fixed into slots every year. You need things to be fluid. You need teams to replace each other and cycle through highs and lows. It keeps everyone interested.

I'm glad that St. John's, DePaul, and Georgetown are playing well... Even if that sacrifices one bid in the short-term (instead of 7 end up with 6) in the long term that will keep Georgetown/DePaul/St. John's fans interested and the programs in an upward trajectory which can help strength the league top to bottom.