So, the Big East announces that the Big East Basketball Tournament is fully sold out for the first time, ever. By that, they mean the member schools have purchased all of the ticket packages, and there will be no general sales from Madison Square Garden.
Go figure. There are 16 teams purchasing tickets. Even schools that know they won’t be qualifying for the BET — USF and Seton Hall — are going to buy ticket packages to sell to their students and alum. If they don’t sell them, they can always make them available to others (and maybe at a nice mark-up). Hard to be that impressed.
Last week, I got on my typical commentary about weak non-con schedules. Ken Pomeroy actually goes a little deeper (ESPN Insider) based on the criticisms of Louisville and UConn’s home-heavy non-con being responsible for some surprising and big losses.
Out of these two events has sprung some criticism of each team’s schedule. The criticism is grounded in a theory that says prolonged stretches in the comfort of one’s home arena(s) against lesser opponents create teams that are not prepared to handle a decent opponent on the road. To further bolster this idea, realize that neither Kentucky nor Marquette look like it will be ranked anytime soon (although Kentucky was when it beat Louisville), so these double-digit losses seem especially out of place for two teams expected to be playing well into March.
Anyway, theories are fun, but it’s more fun to see how they stand up to some objective analysis. This one isn’t particularly easy to attack, but closer scrutiny of what has taken place this season, and in recent seasons, provides some insight.
Pomeroy sees some short-term problems. There are a lot of losses immediately after extended home stands, but the long-term outlook is not much of a problem.
That said, it appears there is a more definitive “no” on the second question of potential long-term effects. The 2003-04 UConn team went on to win the national championship. Syracuse had a similar schedule the season before, and also won the title.
In fact, when it comes to the benefit of a tough schedule, the conference portion has more importance. The last time a team from a one-bid conference made it to the Final Four was UNLV in 1987. This could have implications for Memphis and Gonzaga teams that could be feasting on relative cupcakes for the month or two before the NCAA Tournament.
So while the weak non-con may hurt the RPI and Tournament Seeding (which is an issue regarding match-ups and how close to home you play), it would not appear to be quite so crucial. Not that pundits will give up their cliches and easy explanations regarding non-con schedule. It will be a cold day in hell before terms like “battle-tested” or blaming a loss to a good team in March on beating up on crap teams in November.
Over at SI.com, Luke Winn moves Pitt to #12 in the power ratings, but doesn’t expect Pitt to remain undefeated by the end of their hell week.
If things get ugly for the Panthers next week — when they enter a stretch of four games in nine days (with three straight on the road) — they can put part of the blame on ESPN.
He read the article about the schedule shifting and went with it.
Big East Basketball Blog previews tonight’s game, and picks Pitt. This despite DePaul winning some fairly impressive road games at Wake Forest, Dayton, and Cal. Why? Match-ups and style.
Pittsburgh does have to like the match-up with DePaul as the Blue Demons do not shoot the ball very well from beyond the arc (just 31.9% on the season), they do not rebound very well and they will likely be without a strong offensive post presence to challenge Aaron Gray defensively. Although, they might get the services of Wesley Green back, but it would be on a very limited basis for this game if they do. Green would be the offensive threat that would force Gray to work a little harder on defensive and could get him in to a little foul trouble.
DePaul does have Sammy Mejia, a 6’5 junior guard who is averaging 15.6 PPG, 5 rebounds and 2.5 assists a game and has an excellent mid-range game. This is the type of player that can also give the Panthers some trouble as they do seem to lack a big guard that can defend physically at this point in time.
Mejia or bust, then.
