An article from the UMass student paper on Dante Milligan transferring there. Apparently the writer and the editors do not know the correct spelling of Pittsburgh.
The worst of the Big East beat the worst of the ACC. Providence ended up crushing Virginia. Even before this, you had VT and Miami performing respectably in the ACC. In the 4 years that both teams played BE basketball they never won more than a combined 14 games. They have already won 9 in the ACC. This has led one writer at the NC State student paper to conclude that the BE is the better overall conference. No word yet, as to whether he has had to go into hiding.
As the 2004 college basketball season approached, experts hailed the ACC as the best conference in the nation, but the reality is that the Big East has taken over the title.
The ACC has a core of three teams (Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill and Wake Forest) better than any three teams in any other conference, but overall, the conference lacks the depth to be called the best.
If the season ended today, it’s likely that the Big East would have seven teams in the tournament compared to the ACC’s five. Add four more to the total counting the teams coming into the Big East next year.
The ACC made the mistake of annexing the two weakest teams in the conference, which subsequently made things worse off for themselves, though it did improve the football side of the conference.
Miami and Virginia Tech were expected to be at the bottom of the ACC, but have surprised (and embarrassed) many and shown that all the years playing Syracuse, UConn and Pitt have paid off, and are now ahead of six of the ACC’s traditional teams.
His recommendation:
Undoubtedly, there will be arguments about this to come, but the only way to decide it for good is for the ACC to stop picking on the Big 10 every year and take on someone as good as they are, and start the annual ACC-Big East Challenge.
I’m game, though, I would be more in favor of an East-West series. A Big East-Pac 10 Challenge. The lowest 6 teams from the BE would not play obviously.
Why BC will not go undefeated and may not get far in the NCAA Tournament. I’m quite torn about BC. I really like their team, and their coach has been nothing but class. I even picked them as my dark horse team to win the Big East. Hate the school and the way they are bolting the Big East. This team has drawn some comparisons to the Pitt team of the previous few years. They play a stifling, physical defense and a game that gets the ball inside. Since I watched that sort of team for the previous few years, I feel like I can make some comments.
There is no way a team can go undefeated, let alone advance far in the tournament shooting only 30% from the 3-point line. Now I know they are not dependent on 3-point shooting, but they still take about 10 shots a game (61-202). Their best 3-point shooter is at 35.4%.
Sooner or later they will face a team that can match-up inside, or will completely collapse inside forcing them to take perimeter shots. Or their inside guys will just have a bad game.
They average 75 points a game, but the last two, they have scored only 64 and 62. Remember how Pitt just couldn’t seem to score by the end of the year? Everyone was saying they were a defense only team? Pitt averaged over 67 points/game last year. By the end of the season, though, they were tired and worn.
They are a very good team, and they have the schedule advantage of not having to play the best of the Big East more than once, but they still have games against ND, Villanova, Syracuse and Pitt left. Yes, all but the ND game is in Chestnut Hill, but I figure they have 2 losses coming.
