Syracuse/UCONN

[SJHooper]

Oddly, I think we have gotten more love from ESPN recently. Last night during Cuse v. UConn on ESPN2 (big audience), they were raving about the Big East as it is today and said how impressed they were. I've also seen SC top 10 highlights on Instagram with Creighton, G'Town, Nova, etc. Are they biased in favor of big football schools? Clearly, but I think we are at the point now where they can't totally ignore us anymore. We've also seen lots of ESPN articles praising the conference and you can tell people are surprised we succeeded but many are giving us our due. I think there should be an obligation to cover the Big East just as much as the ACC, but the TV deal drives the bias. They are always going to hype their product over FS1's. There is definitely a dropoff...we used to be like the favorite son of ESPN...you couldn't look anywhere without seeing the Big East on ESPN networks or sites, however I don't think it's as far a dropoff as it was when it first formed. As someone said, force them to notice. How do you do that? Win consistently, bigly (had to), and go deep in the tourney.

[gtmoBlue]

Massey Composite echoes that line of reasoning.

http://www.masseyratings.com/cb/compare.htm

However, the metrics aside, that still does not account for the lack of major media coverages for our four ranked teams.

[NJRedman]

Terrible shooting from both sides. But still fun to watch CUSE/CONN go at it. I was flipping the channels from FS1/ESPN2 every few minutes. Glad that Connecticut won, glad the ACC got another loss, and even better than SJU won for the Big East.

Big East still above the ACC in RPI as of tonight. The rest of this week can really help (or screw us up) the league stay in the 1-3 spots in the RPI index for the rest of the year + HUGE weekend ahead

Wow. You might be the only guy alive that would call that still fun to watch.....

While I wouldn't call myself a UConn fan... I do sympathize with the huskies. Fiancee's alma mater and spent some great days at Storrs. I was happy Connecticut came through for the W. Always a great day when Syracuse gets an L. As bad as the game was, it's fun to see a UConn victory over Cuse

Fudge that! My fiancee went to Cuse and I laugh every time they lose. She knows how much I hate Syracuse, but shes a girl who doesn't care about sports so she doesn't mind. hahaha

[Bill Marsh]

At halftime of the Johnnies game, and again when the game was finished, I managed to catch a little of the Cuse/UCONN game tonight. Without question, that was the ugliest, most unwatchable basketball I've seen in years, and being a St. John's fan that's saying a lot. After witnessing that slop, I honestly believe the Johnnies will have a legitimate chance against the Orange, when they play in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I hope they sanitize the Garden after those two teams and those two fan bases were in the building tonight.

I watched a good part of that game. Both teams played tremendous defense. UConn really had. Trouble with the zone except for their big run.

As good as the D was, the offense for both teams is clearly lagging at this point in the season. I wouldn't write either team off at this point. Let's see where they are a month from now as they continue to develop.

BTW, Alterique Gilbert, UConn's freshman PG has missed the last several games after separating his shoulder a few weeks ago. Jalen Adams, a shooting guard, has been playing out of position at the point to fill in. Obviously that affects the entire offense, so the team is going through an adjustment period to get its offense in synch.

[Bill Marsh]

Simply amazing that these 2 bad teams can still garner more press than our 4 good teams in the major media.

Joe Lunardi promptly demoted X to 18th and the two major polls dropped them to 14th. CBS has them in 13th also. Not many talking heads had been talking much about Xavier or Creighton previously. Norlander has a piece on the undefeated teams, including notes on Nova, Butler, and Creighton. Nova is getting some press - thanks to their Natty and hot start, with Hart in the NPOY conversation. Butler is beginning to get some national coverage...no doubt aided by their win over Arizona.

The lack of interest, let alone love, for our guys is appalling. Maybe it's just me being overly sensitive...but more national press coverage can easily done and would be appropriate. IMO it appears that the talking heads have decided to ignore the Big East - maybe we will go away?

I checked a couple of the computer ratings that I look at regularly, and they have X in the range of 17-23. The computers aren't putting them there out of any sense of bias.

The good news is that RPI Forecast has them at #12, so they're anticipating that X will rise if they continue to play as they have been.