We realize the last real Big East Tournament is already in full swing in Madison Square Garden, with DePaul, Providence, Seton Hall and South Florida already sent packing in four chalky contests. But with 71% of the field still in the hunt and two second round games remaining tonight, we maintain that arriving late to the party is better than never showing up at all.

So here, in a format lifted shamelessly from Pat Forde, are our best- and worst-case for the four teams to be showcased tonight. What do each of them stand to gain or lose in New York City this week?

#11 Rutgers

Wally Judge (Tom Ciszek/NJSportsPhoto)

No. 11 seed Rutgers has already advanced into day two of the Big East Tournament after dispatching with DePaul in convincing fashion. They failed to advance beyond the first round in Madison Square Garden last season, losing 70-49 to #11-seed Villanova.

Next game: Rutgers will face No. 6 seed Notre Dame in the 9:00 PM slot tonight.

• Best Case: While they took the Irish down to the wire in South Bend in their only contest this season, that was with 20 points from Eli Carter, who would break his leg a month later. Sadly, at 15-15 (5-13 in conference play) and missing their best player, avenging a February loss to the Blue Demons is likely as good as it gets for the Mike Rice’s club in New York City. At #107 in the RPI, Rutgers’ best hope is to lock up an NIT bid with an upset win over Notre Dame.
• Worst Case: Mike Rice hurls a ball at Mike Brey’s head, resulting in a suspension for the duration of the CBI. Indiana’s General Assembly passes a resolution banishing Rice from the Hoosier State, forcing him to watch his team’s Big Ten road games in Bloomington and West Lafayette from his couch.

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Brian Otskey attended the afternoon session of the Big East Tournament and filed this report. Follow him on Twitter @botskey

1. Cincinnati proved it was NCAA Tournament worthy in the first game of the day, easily dispatching Providence by 17 points. The Bearcats, who had lost six of their last nine games to put their NCAA hopes in some jeopardy, left no doubt this afternoon. Cincinnati brought it on the defensive end and limited Providence to 28% shooting. The Bearcats were well prepared for what they would encounter from what had been a hot Friars team. Coach Mick Cronin said he wanted to make Kadeem Batts uncomfortable and that they did. Cincinnati also held Bryce Cotton, the Big East’s leading scorer, to 12 points on just 5-of-15 shooting. Cincinnati was at its best this season when it defended well. We saw that today and that’s the reason why the Bearcats will hear their name called this Sunday regardless of what happens the rest of the way at Madison Square Garden.
   

   Cincy

2. Providence couldn’t get the big wins it needed down the stretch in losing its regular season finale to Connecticut on Saturday and following that up this afternoon with a dismal performance against Cincinnati. Providence was a long shot to make the NCAA Tournament but its late season surge had put the Friars in position to sneak into the field with a solid ending to the season and a run at the Garden. Most people have felt Providence is a year away and that’s what we saw today and last Saturday. The Friars needed to beat UConn, Cincinnati and probably Georgetown tomorrow in order to have a chance. They lost to the Huskies and Bearcats and as a result won’t have a chance to play the Hoyas. Providence is NIT-bound but this has been a successful season for Ed Cooley’s group. It’s one to build upon as the Friars transition into the “new” Big East next season. Read the rest of this entry »

With the start of the final Big East Tournament as we know it on Tuesday night, the RTC Podcast guys invited Big East microsite writer Mike Lemaire (@rtcbigeast) along for the discussion. In a rapid-fire half-hour podblast, the trio breaks down what we see as the key storylines and possible outcomes from an event fraught with interesting possibilities. Feel free to hop around to your areas of concern using the handy outline below, and make sure to check back frequently this week as we’ll be rolling out a new podblast for each of the six major conference tourneys.

• 0:00-5:00 – Georgetown Wraps Up The Regular Season Title in Emphatic Style Over Syracuse
• 5:00-7:58 – First Team All-Big East Discussion
• 7:58-13:07 – Future of the League(s) and End of an Era
• 13:07-16:06 – Things to Watch In the Opening Rounds
• 16:06-18:10 – Georgetown’s the #1 Seed, But Not the Favorite
• 18:10-22:03 – Can Syracuse Turn Around The Season?
• 22:03-24:45 – Bubble Teams Looking to Lock Up Bids
• 24:45-25:45 – Dark Horse Team
• 25:45-26:56 – Tournament’s Breakout Star
• 26:56-28:38 – Player You Don’t Want to Say Goodbye To
• 28:38-29:38 – Dream Match-Up
• 29:38-31:48 – Big East Team Poised for the Best NCAA Tournament Run/Wrap

The six power conferences along with the elite mids begin their league tournaments this week, with the Big East and Mountain West tipping off tonight. On Wednesday, the Big 12, Pac-12 and the SEC will get under way, while Thursday will bring us the Atlantic 10, the ACC and the Big Ten. All of us have our own opinions about the favorites to win each conference tournament, but Las Vegas makes its business out of it. Today, we’ll examine the current odds for the leagues that begin Tuesday and Wednesday (excluding the SEC) — tomorrow, we’ll look at the remainder. There are some interesting disparities between general perception and the odds, and we’ll make note of those below (all odds reported from 5dimes.com on Monday night).

The Big East Tournament is especially interesting in how it views top-seeded Georgetown. Not only does it give #2 seed Louisville nearly a three times greater chance of winning this tournament, but #4 seed Pittsburgh and #5 seed Syracuse are both considered better choices. Marquette, the #3 seed that tied for first place at 14-4 with the Hoyas and Cardinals, is not considered a significant threat to win this tournament with a less than 10 percent chance.

Home court advantage dominates here, as #3 seed UNLV is far and away the favorite to win the Mountain West championship this week. The rest of the odds pretty much fall in line with the seeds, as New Mexico, Colorado State, San Diego State and Boise State have a progressively worse chance to win this competitive league before the drop-off hits at #6 seed Air Force.

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1. The Big East named Kadeem Batts and Michael Carter-Williams co-Most Improved Players in the conference yesterday. Though Vincent Council was the only Providence player to receive Preseason All-Big East honors, it was ultimately the explosive development of his teammate at center that buttressed the Friars’ best Big East record since 2009. The embattled junior revamped a flagging college career in dramatic fashion, becoming his team’s second-leading scorer (15.2 PPG) and rebounder (7.4 RPG) after his production dipped across the board in his sophomore campaign. Batts scored 14 or more points in seven of the Friars’ final eight regular season games, and his 20-point performance in last month’s victory over Notre Dame had drawn an emphatic nomination from Mike Brey for the league’s Most Improved Player.
2. Rutgers AD Tim Pernetti reiterated his support for Mike Rice yesterday, and confirmed that Rice will return to coach his fourth season despite struggles on and off the court in 2012-13. Rice is 16-38 in the Big East in his three seasons in Piscataway, with a list of reprimands that includes an ejection in Louisville last season and a three-game suspension levied by Pernetti in December for prior abusive behavior towards his players. But Pernetti told The Star-Ledger (NJ) that he was impressed with the response from Rice, who claims he’s “grown up a lot and learned a lot about what it means to be a better coach, a better person and a better leader” after the humbling experience. Pernetti conceded his program’s progress this season hasn’t manifested “in the win-loss column,” but insisted “you can definitely see us getting better.” Rice will enter the fourth season of his five-year contract in 2013-14.
3. With UConn’s final game of 2012-13 in the books, The Hartford Courant’s Dom Amore evaluates the inaugural year of the Kevin Ollie era as an “unqualified success.” With the specter of impending NCAA penalties finally lifted from the shoulders of next year’s team, “any rationale for losing also disappears.” The toxicity of Storrs last year scared away transfers, exacerbated a tenuous coaching transition, and disincentivized talented players from eschewing the NBA for one more year. Suddenly, Amore contends, those bleak conditions have given way to long-term coaching stability, optimism on the recruiting trail and an opportunity to persuade UConn’s draft prospects to return to compete for a national championship next season.
4. Despite the alarm surrounding Syracuse, Jim Boeheim believes it’s “very possible” his team can still regroup in the Big East Tournament and salvage a strong postseason performance. After losing seven of their final 12 and failing to eclipse 40 points in the final game of a heated rivalry, the coach admitted that the Orange are “not a good Tournament team.” But he also insisted that a couple of games in Madison Square Garden and the week of practice beyond pose valuable opportunities for the Orange to locate signs of life on offense. The Post-Standard’s Bud Poliquin points out that since starting 18-1, the Orange have shot less than 39% from the field in eight of 12 games, concluding with a 15-of-47 (31.9%) outing in the Georgetown debacle.
5. Steve Politi’s Sunday column in the New Jersey Star-Ledger contains some great anecdotal history from the Big East Tournament’s humble inception. To put this week’s highly orchestrated, sold-out event in perspective, consider the following. In 1981, the second year of the tournament, four ticketless Georgetown fans entered the bowels of the Carrier Dome donning various animal costumes, including a penguin suit. Each told oblivious security guards –– who had no clue what a Hoya was supposed to look like –– that he was the official school mascot. And astonishingly, it worked, which merely underscores how many of the league’s most intimate modern rivalries were predated by striking unfamiliarity, and forged only through time and competitiveness.

1. We know that March started 10 days ago, but for college basketball fans the month really gets going once teams start to receive automatic bids for the NCAA Tournament — over the weekend, the first handful of bids were handed out. The first entries into the field of 2013 NCAA Tournament are Belmont, Creighton, Florida Gulf Coast, Harvard, and Liberty. While none of these schools are traditional powers in the sense that the person who wins your office pool will know about them, they do represent a pretty wide range from a “mid-major” power that is the envy of many athletic directors at bigger conferences (Creighton) to a team with 20 losses that up until Sunday was probably most notable for being the former school of Duke’s Seth Curry (Liberty).
2. One of the schools that earned an automatic bid was Creighton, which made it back to the NCAA Tournament after a hard-fought victory against Wichita State that should have showcased the high level of basketball being played in the Missouri Valley Conference. Unfortunately, much of the country was unable to watch the conclusion of the championship game as CBS cut away from the end to show the start of the Indiana-Michigan game. This will not approach the level of infamy of the famous “Heidi” game, but this is a pretty big slap in the face of basketball fans across the country who are not only enticed by big brand names, but who like watching quality mid-major basketball — especially in the closing minutes of a game with an NCAA Tournament bid on the line.
3. With Creighton seemingly on its way to the new Big East, the dominoes in conference realignment have again begun to fall with some analysts speculating that the MVC could go after Belmont or Denver as a replacement for the Bluejays. Of course both teams are new to their current conferences (OVC for Belmont and WAC/Summit for Denver), which would mean that the move would inevitably trigger another cascade with the aggrieved conference pursuing the next biggest fish in the pool. At this point we are just hoping that the Catholic 7/Big East-Big East/America 12 split is the last major move of this cycle.
4. Speaking of that split, there are still a few pieces adrift in that wreckage as Notre Dame has been looking for a way out of the “old” Big East to head to the ACC. Now it appears that they may have a way with the league reportedly asking for at least $2.5 million as an exit fee. The at least modifier gives us some pause, but if that is what the sources are anchoring the discussion on, we doubt that the number would be much higher without football involved in the negotations. If true, it is interesting how far the price has fallen from the previous bargaining where the conference was asking for future football games against its schools, which would bring in much more money than $2.5 million through direct ticket sales, advertising, and television contracts.
   
5. While on the subject of all these Big Easts, the conference in its current form will holds its final conference tournament beginning Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden. We don’t care who carries on the name in the future — a league tourney that doesn’t have Syracuse, Georgetown, UConn and Pitt in it just won’t be the same. The NYT uses the prism of a block that St. John’s star Walter Berry made on Syracuse star Pearl Washington to win the 1986 Big East Tournament to tell the history of the league, and it’s well worth the next 10 minutes of your time. The two former Big East legends, each now approaching 50 years old, plan on attending the event this week — we suspect that they won’t be the only ghosts of Big East past who will be around to relive past glories and celebrate the lifetime of a league that redefined major college basketball.

1. An ugly fight broke out at Tuesday night’s Notre Dame-St. John’s game between the Red Storm’s Sir’Dominic Pointer and Irish freshman Cam Biedscheid. After battling over a rebound, Pointer appears to take a swing at Biedscheid, who then retaliated. Despite the fact that Pointer seemed to be the aggressor in this situation, Pointer and Biedscheid will both miss their teams’ next games because both engaged in the fight.  Mike Brey tried to appeal Biedscheid’s suspension to the conference to no avail: “There’s no appeals process, which is disappointing… Once it’s deemed a fight, which it was, and he was throwing punches, it is what it is.”
2. Mike Brey seems about ready to hop off the conference realignment carousel. With the news that the Catholic 7 will be breaking away from the Big East to become… the Big East… it is unclear whether Notre Dame next year will stick around with UConn, Cincinnati, and friends, or join the Catholic 7 for a season, or head to the ACC a season early. If the ACC will have the Irish, that solution seems to make the most sense, but then again, this is conference realignment. Sense was checked at the door years ago.
3. James Robinson has flown a bit under the radar this season for Pitt nationally, but those in the program hold the freshman in very high esteem. Former Panthers great Brandin Knight sees great potential in the young point guard: “He’s just one of those guys that you get the feeling that there’s something special about him… He has the poise and he really understands the game. He’s very mature beyond his years.”  Robinson averages 6.1 points and 3.5 assists per game in 26.7 minutes of action for Pitt, and in the team’s last game against Villanova he scored 14 points in the overtime win.
4. Villanova has had a number of statement wins this season, but coming into Wednesday night the Wildcats were still not a sure thing for the NCAA Tournament. Knocking off Georgetown last night should help secure Nova’s spot in the Big Dance. The game with the Hoyas was an ugly affair, with three Georgetown players fouling out and the Wildcats hitting 30 free throws while the Hoyas could only muster four there. The win keeps Villanova from entering postseason play on a multiple game slide, and sets them up well for next week’s Madison Square Garden processions.
5. Another day, another weird story coming out of Syracuse. Moments after the Orange defeated DePaul Wednesday evening, the school’s official Twitter account published a message speculating that it could be Jim Boeheim’s last game as Orange head coach with a link to a blog post, which stated that according to “sources,” Syracuse was under investigation by the NCAA and Syracuse athletic director Daryl Gross had asked Boeheim to step down. After the game, Syracuse released the statement that the story was completely false, as most who read it had assumed, but the larger story here is that there has been a long line of social media incidents stemming from the official Syracuse University accounts. Last year, one of the student interns who runs @SyracuseU tweeted about the upcoming DaJuan Coleman decision before the center had formally made his college choice between Syracuse, Kentucky, and Ohio State — a clear violation of NCAA rules. There have been numerous other instances of similar mistaken tweets. On an individual level, these tweets seem like minor mistakes, but when taken as a group, it shows that the school needs to take their social media presence more seriously.

1. Syracuse’s senior game tonight against DePaul features two members of the Orange making their definite final appearances at the Carrier Dome as players: Brandon Triche and James Southerland. However, few would bet that these are the only two scholarship players who will move on after this season. The best bet is that Michael Carter-Williams will join them despite his recent bouts of poor play. Some Syracuse fans argue that he could use more seasoning in college, and they’re not wrong, but many forget that despite being a true sophomore, MCW is already 21 years old now and will be 22 before next season. MCW would be the eighth Syracuse player in six seasons to leave school early, with four of those players — Donte Greene, Jonny Flynn, Wes Johnson, and Dion Waiters — picked in the first round of the NBA Draft.  Waiters, who played with Carter-Williams last season, weighed in: “Michael’s a 6’6″ point guard. You can’t teach height. If he comes here, he’ll get nothing but better.” In his Syracuse.com piece on the subject, Bud Poliquin also mentions C.J. Fair and Rakeem Christmas as possible early departures, but those seem like stretches from this observer.
2. In the classy moves by coaches department, Rick Pitino announced that junior Gorgui Dieng will be allowed to participate in Senior Day festivities in anticipation that the center will make the jump to the NBA after this season. “He has given us more than we have asked for. It is in his best interest to come out, and I think he is ready… He has been great for us. I have enjoyed coaching him so much. It is going to be a very difficult Senior Night. I have had some difficult ones, but this may be the most difficult.” There is definitely an argument to be made for keeping senior days for those who finish out their four years of eligibility, but I have no issue with exceptions being made for people like Dieng who were both great players and, by all accounts, students in addition to players during their time in college.
3. This is the point of the season where teams look to ramp it up and start playing their best ball as they head into postseason play. Pitt’s Talib Zanna had been in an extended slump, averaging just 5.5 points per game for an extended period after averaging 13+ PPG for the first two months of the year. Recently, however, it seems like Zanna has started to find his rhythm again, and that doesn’t bode well for teams at the Garden next week. In Pitt’s last home game against Villanova, Zanna went off for 14 points and 19 rebounds in an overtime victory. Pitt closes the season at DePaul on Saturday before preparing for their final Big East Tournament.
4. Cincinnati basketball hasn’t been the most beautiful version of the game this season, and things have only been worse in that regard with the constant injury issues that have befallen Cashmere Wright. He popped his shoulder out of the joint for the sixth time in Monday’s loss to Louisville, according to Mick Cronin. In the last few games, it seemed like Wright had been getting closer to 100 percent, which he clearly hasn’t been since a mid-January injury against DePaul. If Wright can’t find his shot and the lion’s share of the Bearcats’ scoring falls on Sean Kilpatrick’s shoulders in the postseason, Cincinnati will continue to struggle to score in the season’s most important games.
5. Scott Martin’s career has been plagued by injuries, so if the Notre Dame forward can’t maintain a long career overseas, he has a fallback plan in coaching. Mike Brey believes that Martin is well-suited for the sideline: “I think he’s going to be a hell of a coach.” In a Chicago Tribune article, Martin discusses how he’s begun to watch the game through an analytical lens and former Irish teammate Ben Hansbrough admitted that he and Martin discussed coaching after their careers had wrapped. Martin’s constant injuries may have derailed a promising career, but it is good to hear that he has a strong plan for after basketball…well, after playing basketball, anyway.

1. As expected, more details have emerged in the Jim Boeheim-Andy Katz “feud”, which came to a head last night when Boeheim called Katz an idiot and refused to answer his questions at the presser that followed Syracuse’s loss at Connecticut.  What was originally assumed by many to be an issue with Katz sharing some information about James Southerland’s academic issues now seems to be more about last year’s Bernie Fine fiasco.  Let’s hear from Boeheim: “It’s really simple. I went to New York last year to play in the (NIT Pre-Season Tip-Off) Tournament in November and he (Katz) asked if he could interview me about the tournament. And I said, ‘Yeah, but I can’t talk about the (Bernie Fine) investigation.’ We got in the room and he put me on camera — there were several witnesses there — and he asked me what I’d told him I couldn’t answer. I kept telling him, ‘I can’t answer that.’ And he asked me, like, 10 times on camera. He never took the camera off me. Two or three people in the room were so disgusted they walked out of the room. The producer came over and apologized afterward. And I told Katz right then and there, ‘Don’t talk to me. Do not try to talk to me again.'” Katz issued a response following the Syracuse.com article: “There was no deal. I don’t cut deals. He might have thought there was a deal, but I have never, ever made a deal… The reason I did that is because with guys like Jim Boeheim, John Calipari, Jim Calhoun they’ll, say there’s a certain subject they don’t want to talk about and then they’ll talk about it. If I asked it one too many times, fine, criticize me. I was just trying to see if he’d answer the question.”
2. On the brighter side for Syracuse fans… err, maybe not so much after Wednesday night in Hartford… Michael Carter-Williams continues to grab headlines for his play.  Mike DeCourcy of  Sporting News went into depth with MCW about his high-risk, high-reward play this season, and how his scant playing time last season has helped in his maturation process.  Carter-Williams, like Dion Waiters before him, is a fiery competitor, and is has gotten the best of him in games before, including one instance last season when he snapped at Jim Boeheim after being taken out of a game: “Definitely, there were a couple of times when it got the better of me and I lashed out at Coach. Those were mistakes I made. Coach told me if I wasn’t yelling at him, he wouldn’t know what to expect from me. I was a McDonald’s All-American and I wasn’t playing … he knew I wanted to be out there.”  Carter-Williams’ play has been up and down this Big East season, but few deny his talent, and the fact that if Syracuse has a chance at making a final four run this season, it will be in large part due to MCW’s play.
3.  College basketball is wide open this season, and the Big East is no different. It seems like half of the league is still in contention for the conference crown, and no one knows what will happen once the Big East tournament kicks off at Madison Square Garden. UConn was never supposed to be in the discussion this season.  After being handed a full post-season ban due to APR issues, and losing a number of talented players from their NCAA tournament team last season, UConn was largely an afterthought in the league.  However, with the win over Syracuse, the Huskies sit just a game out of first place in the conference, and the team may be especially dangerous, as a regular season Big East title is all that they can play for this year.
4. Cincinnati’s offensive woes have been well-documented, especially since Cashmere Wright’s injury in January.  Sean Kilpatrick has been a one man show for the Bearcats, and that hasn’t been a winning formula.  In their recent win over Villanova, Cincinnati was able to find offense from another source: JaQuon Parker.  Parker averages 10.9 points per game for Cincy, but had been in a bit of a scoring drought before breaking out with 19 points against the Wildcats.  The significance of his contribution was not lost on Mick Cronin: “He’s got to stay aggressive and I’ve got to help him with that. Put him in situations to where he can be aggressive and he’s thinking offense.  He’s thinking attack. For us to win, he’s got to play that way. For us to be a high-level team, he’s got to be a double-figure guy.”
5. The ballad of Todd Mayo at Marquette has hit frequent rough notes, but he is a rare talent that could become a major asset for Buzz Williams’ squad if kept in check.  Mayo spent the early part of this season on academic suspension, and he has had his playing time cut at points since his return for what many expect is disciplinary reasons.  When Mayo does suit up, he is a dangerous offensive weapon, averaging over 17.5 points per 40 minutes played.  The trouble is, for every double digit game he tallies, he only plays five minutes in another.  There are rumblings that Mayo may not be long for Marquette, but while he is still on the team, they can certainly use him in their race for the top of the Big East.

1. With Syracuse’s 78-53 takedown of Rutgers at the Carrier Dome last night, Jim Boeheim took sole ownership of second place on the Division I all-time wins list with 903 victories, passing Bob Knight. These first few months of the season have been eventful for Boeheim, whose ascent up this list has been the focus of tremendous media attention and occasional scrutiny this season. In weighing in on Boeheim’s ranking among the greatest coaches of all-time, Rob Dauster notes the affect that a single Keith Smart jumper has had on Boeheim’s perception. If that shot doesn’t fall, Boeheim is two wins ahead of Knight, has the same number of national titles (two) as the man who many consider the greatest game coach of all-time, and many writers have a lot less material come March.
2. USF and UCF have played twice this season, splitting two contests that foreshadow what may develop into a nice rivalry for whatever the future of the Big East holds. Tampa Bay Online‘s Joey Johnston argues that the rivalry between the two schools could become a staple for the new look Big East, or whichever conference the two schools find themselves attached to in the future. Johnston believes that the natural rivalry and the high number of television sets in the I-4 corridor makes the two schools very attractive. Let the lobbying begin.
3. Buzz Williams‘ 48-hour suspension from the Marquette basketball team has now ended, and the fiery coach will rejoin the team in preparation for Georgetown. Williams’ suspension stemmed from assistant coach Scott Monarch giving apparel and rides to a Golden Eagles recruit. Monarch, a close friend of Williams, was summarily fired. Williams was not found to have had any knowledge of the violations, but he took the school-sanctioned leave as the program is ultimately his responsibility. Marquette defeated UConn in overtime during Williams’ absence from the team.
4. Pittsburgh‘s two losses to Michigan and Cincinnati had a very similar feel to them, and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette‘s Ray Fittipaldo outlines three major factors that hurt the Panthers in both games: a lack of rebounding in the second half, especially from the center position; struggles against talented, aggressive guards on the perimeter; and, opposing teams limiting the Panthers’ transition game.  If Pitt can’t solve these issues soon, the team will have major struggles in league play. Syracuse has a strong interior presence, Louisville has excellent high-energy guard play, and Georgetown will absolutely look to control the game’s tempo, just to name three teams who will look to take advantage of these weaknesses.
5. Syracuse.com‘s Mike Waters was asked about his all-time Big East team in his weekly mailbag. This is a fun exercise that I’m sure will come up on many sites and blogs this year, especially around Big East Tournament time. Waters weighs in on a number of Big East greats before settling on a strong starting five consisting of Sherman Douglas, Ray Allen, Chris Mullin, Derrick Coleman, and Patrick Ewing.  When a conference could have a second team of Allen Iverson, Kerry Kittles, Carmelo Anthony, Donyell Marshall, and Alonzo Mourning, you know that they’ve been doing something right for a very long time.