by Doug Potter
In the Big East, one thing is for sure; there are no easy victories, no pushovers, and no games that ANY team can mark off as a win. That being said, like all conferences, the Big East has its power-houses (Pitt and UConn) and its weaker teams (South Florida and DePaul). This past week saw many great performances by teams as well as individual players. Here are some of them:
Individual Performances:
DeJuan Blair (Pittsburgh)- Blair had 20 pts, 17 reb, 3 ast, 2 blk this past Saturday. The 6’7” 265 lbs sophomore forward may lack in size but he showed last weekend that his toughness is of abundance. His strong performance helped the still undefeated Pitt Panthers (14-0) thoroughly handle the young Georgetown Hoyas 70-54, which coupled with a North Carolina loss, now has his Panthers team at the top of the rankings.
Luke Harangody (Notre Dame)- The reigning Big East Player of the year has certainly picked up where he left off last year. In a 65-71 loss to St. John’s on Saturday, Harangody racked up 28 points and 14 rebounds and on Monday in a 73-67 win over Georgetown he had 31 points and 11 rebounds, which gives him nine double-doubles this year. He’s averaging 24.1 pts and 12.4 rebounds per game, which is up considerably from his season of a year ago (20.4 PPG and 10.6 RPG) so look for Harangody to continue to rack up the double-doubles and quite possibly a second POY award.
Scottie Reynolds (Villanova)- Talk about efficiency at its finest, Mr. Reynolds had 40 points on just 17 shots in Villanova’s 89-95 overtime victory over the Seton Hall Pirates on Tuesday. Reynolds helped his team improve its record to 13-2 and his 15-16 from the free-throw line helped contribute to the 18 straight his team had to end the game, a big part for why the Wildcats came out on top in a typical grind-it-out Big East conference game.
Team Performances:
The Entire Big East- That’s right, don’t look now but the conference somehow continues to get stronger. The Big East now has nine teams in the top 25 AP Coaches poll. The conference continues to shine as they became the first conference to have seven teams in the pre-season polls, but on December 1st they became the first conference to have eight in the polls, just to increase that number to nine this past week. This could be the limit, however, as I don’t foresee any other teams cracking the top 25.
Pittsburgh Panthers- The Pitt Panthers not only defeated one of the hottest teams in the Big East in Georgetown by sixteen, but they just received the first #1 ranking in the polls in school history. With games versus St. John’s and South Florida coming up, it should stay that way for at least another week.
Marquette Golden Eagles- After stumbling out to an 8-2 start, the Eagles are on a roll and it started last Thursday when they defeated a good Villanova team 79-72. After a 34-point victory over Cincinnati and a hard fought road win at Rutgers, Marquette is now sitting at 14-2 and 3-0 in the Big East.
The Week Ahead:
No games are scheduled for Thursday or Friday, but the weekend has a trio of intriguing games in store for us.
Saturday
#21 Louisville @ #17 Villanova- 12 pm
#22 West Virginia @ #15 Marquette- 12 pm
#9 Syracuse @ Rutgers- 7:30 pm
Monday
#13 Notre Dame @ #21 Louisville- 7 pm
Harangody’s performance versus GU was monster like. He seems to have recovered from his bout with mono. If not for that lame charge that he got called for, he could have gone for 30 points.
The Big East could have a significant run-in with survival of the fittest. Not that the polls are the end of the world, but the loser of the L’ville / Villanova game will probably drop from the top 25 – as could WVU if they lose at Marquette.
In a conference like this, ya can’t worry about a couple losses because it’s gonna happen. Just need to focus on being over .500 in Conference play. That almost certainly gets you to your conference tourney and then the Big Dance … if you’re from the BE. Maybe not so in other conferences.
10 teams in the dance? It’s possible! 9 teams in is amazing enough! Hope it happens. I always thought of the Big East as a college CYO league, what with all those Catholic schools. Always was partial to CYO ball.
Catholicism and basketball – kinda goes together like hops and barley. 🙂
I’m a bit surprised Lousville walked out of this past week 3-0 to start conference play. ‘Nova should have closed that game out; more their fault than it was Lousville’s credit in my opinion.
Is it me, or has Pitino never really been successful developing point guards? Sosa seemed primed to break out of his shell this year, and now Pitino had McGee in the game late against ND. Sosa is certainly not at the level of Reynolds or Flynn, but he has the tools to create and cause havoc in the middle third of the floor. Somebody name a Kentucky PG for me that was legit. I can’t think of one. I don’t see this Cardinal team holding up against the guards of ‘Cuse, UCONN, Pitt.
Looking forward to the Syracuse-Georgetown game. I love Greg Monroe’s play and loved watching him make a fool out of Thabeet or however you spell his name. As long as Calhoun doesn’t win, I think this Big East season will be enjoyable.
And, Doug – have you heard that the conference tournament will involve ALL 16 teams this year? Top 4 get a bye the first two rounds, top six in the first round or something like that. Which also means to win the tournament, a team who plays in the first round needs to win 6 games. Why waste your time with this schedule. Will DePaul run tha gamut and pull a Gerry McNamara? Come on Big East, let the big dogs fight it out…
By the way – awesome posts so far from what I’ve read. Looking forward to the rest of this conference season on the ‘bench.’