The Big East Weekend Wrap will cover news and notes from the weekend’s games.

After a long week of preseason tournaments, which often featured days of consecutive games for a team, the Big East has just two undefeated teams remaining: Villanova and Seton Hall. The conference at a whole has continued to play competitively and currently stands at 48-12, ranking 4th in Kenpom’s conference rankings. Below is a list of four key takeaways from the past week of Big East action.

JayVaughn Pinkston Came Up With the Defensive Play of the Year in CBB (USA Today Images)

• Villanova finally showed up to play. After their first three games, some had already begun to question whether Villanova truly deserved their preseason #12 ranking. The team as a whole struggled mightily with its outside shooting – something they relied upon heavily last season – and up until last week, held unconvincing wins over Lehigh and Bucknell that weren’t decided until the closing minutes. Yet when the national spotlight was on, the Wildcats came through. The team handily defeated #14 VCU with quick, effective ball movement and a penchant for taking care of the ball. Then, following their statement win was a gripping victory over #19 Michigan, in which the Wildcats escaped after several lead changes in the last few minutes. Finally, they capped off the week with a 31 point rout over Delaware. Junior center Daniel Ochefu should be the frontrunner for Most Improved Player in the Big East. The 6’11 center has shown a newly developed array of post moves that have added a frontcourt dimension unseen in previous Villanova teams. In a league without much talent disparity, Villanova has established themselves as the top dog, head and shoulders above the rest. They will be playing with a target on their backs all season as every opponent will be seeking a resume building victory when they step onto the floor to face the Wildcats.

Read the rest of this entry »

Save for a few hiccups and misfires on the recruiting trail, Jay Wright has kept Villanova in tournament contention throughout his entire 14-year coaching tenure with the team, a track record matched by few. Many remember his success from the tenacious four-guard lineups in 2005 and 2006 or the Scottie Reynolds-led final four team in 2009, and while recent years have been filled with early tournament departures, the Wildcats have continually remained in the picture. His success can be attributed to a number of factors, but above all its his adaptation to changing personnel. While the team has made the NCAA tournament in nine of the previous 10 seasons, the playing style has been remarkably different. Wright has transitioned the team from a fast-paced drive and dish offense centered around guard play and outscoring opponents to one centered around team defense and a balanced, unselfish scoring attack. For the past several seasons, Villanova has not had what NBA scouts would categorize as a star player. There are no one-and-done’s, no lottery pick athletes. Instead, Wright has recruited a group of hard working four-year players who bring a variety of skillsets and offer multi-positional diversity. What this does is build a brand of basketball built around teamwork, help defense and selflessness, and its success can be seen through the Wildcats’ play over the last two games at the Legends Classic.

JayVaughn Pinkston Came Up With the Defensive Play of the Year in CBB (USA Today Images)

Despite struggling against the likes of Lehigh and Bucknell, everything seems to have clicked on Monday night when Villanova took on VCU and the HAVOC defense that has make Shaka Smart famous. But when reviewing the box score, there isn’t a single player that can be pointed to for the reason behind the team’s 24 point rout of VCU. Villanova as a team dished out 20 assists on 29 made baskets and committed just nine turnovers in the process, against a team that had forced a remarkable 60 turnovers in the three contests before it. Four players scored in double figures and the team’s leading scorer is averaging 12.5 points, accounting for a mere 16.2% of the team’s total scoring output. The balanced offense is complemented with a balanced defense. The Wildcats are not particularly quick, or tall, but the team has a number of interchangeable parts, allowing them to effectively switch on ball screens or play help defense in the lanes.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Big East Weekend Wrap will cover news and notes from the weekend’s games.

Continuing its hot start, the Big East finished off another strong week and as a whole, stands at 30-2. For most teams, the competition picked up after a week of tune-up type games. Sensing a higher state of importance, a number of Big East teams stepped up, pulling off upsets and recording marquee, resume-building wins (Creighton, Providence). Others, however, floundered and either lost to underwhelming competition (Marquette) or narrowly avoided ugly losses (Villanova, St. John’s). Below are four key takeaways from the past week of Big East action.

Josh Smith Has Had a Nice Start to the Season (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

• Creighton might not be so bad after all. I’ll admit, I had Creighton ranked #9 in the Big East coming into this season. I thought the loss of McDermott, and three other starters, would have a monumental impact on the offense’s fluidity and efficiency. Instead, head coach Greg McDermott’s playcalling, ball movement, and overall offensive scheme appear to have remained the same. This is largely in part due to the emergence of senior point guard Austin Chatman, who has been near flawless at keeping all of the Bluejays’ newcomers on the same page (2.1 turnovers per 40 minutes). On Wednesday, Creighton squared off against the 18th ranked Oklahoma Sooners and rallied from 18 down to steal the show. Surprisingly, the Bluejays shot poorly all night, just 8-26 from three and 37.5% overall, but Isaiah Zierden and Toby Hegner are doing their best to fill the Manigat/Wragge roles on last year’s squad: finding open space on the floor and draining threes at crucial points in the game. Chatman, the lone returning starter, knows exactly how to run the offense after four years in the system, and has found success by driving and drawing defenders, and either getting to the line or dishing to open teammates. The 6’0 guard posted a 17 point, 11 rebound, six assist statline against the Sooners.
• Kris Dunn is the real deal. Normally, Creighton would receive the top headline in the Big East for its win over #18 Oklahoma, but Dunn’s performance this week was just too impressive to ignore. Dunn’s role on the 5-0 Friars is not as a primary scorer, that’s LaDontae Henton‘s job. Instead, Dunn serves as a distributor and offensive coordinator, putting teammates in a better position to score. The 6’3 sophomore was a highly touted McDonald’s All American out of high school, but spent much of last season on the bench after a season-ending injury just two weeks into the season. Anyone can recognize how important senior LaDontae Henton is to Providence, who scored a career high 38 points in a huge win over Notre Dame today and is averaging a league-leading 19.8 points per game. But Dunn, who got off to a rough start in his first game has completely turned things around and is largely responsible for the Friars’ hot start. He is now averaging 8.0 assists and 4.3 rebounds per game with just 17 turnovers through five games, including a remarkable 14 assists against Navy. Dunn was a major question mark coming into this season, and with a depleted Friars backcourt following Bryce Cotton’s departure, his continued success will be vital to Providence’s. The Friars offense runs at a completely different rate when Dunn on the floor, and now the question will be whether he can avoid foul trouble and stay on the floor long enough in close games: he played just 21 minutes versus Notre Dame, and is averaging 3.3 fouls per game.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Big East Weekend Wrap will cover news and notes from the weekend’s games.

After an 11-game slate of games for the Big East’s 10 teams,  the league remains perfect. While none of those 11 games were against top competition, wins are wins at this point in the season and losses here can really damage a team’s NCAA Tournament resume. Despite the relative talent imbalance between most of the Big East teams and their opponents, some of these games were shockingly close and may have provided wake-up calls for teams and players who were still stuck in preseason mode. For others, it could be a sign of things to come. Below is a list of five key takeaways from the weekend’s Big East action.

Villanova Made Enough Twos to Make Up for a Cold Shooting Night From Three

• Villanova came out flat, shooting 3-of-23 from deep in the first half before finishing 8-of-33 (24.2%) on the night. Those off nights were a major concern for this team last season when the offense sputtered and failed to create easy baskets when the three-point shot wasn’t falling. Starting guards Dylan Ennis and Ryan Arcidiacono combined for 10-of-28 shooting from the floor while senior wing Darrun Hilliard shot just 4-of-18 and 1-of-9 from deep. The Wildcats forced enough turnovers (28) and got enough points in transition to put Lehigh away, but the win was not a comfortable one by any means. The Wildcats’ shooting numbers are worth watching moving forward.
• Creighton swept its weekend slate, finishing 2-0 against Central Arkansas and Chicago State by a combined 45 points. The biggest question for the Bluejays coming into this season was how the team would respond without its offensive centerpiece, Doug McDermott. While neither of the above teams was strong enough defensively to provide an answer to this question, the offense continued to fire on all cylinders. Creighton hoisted up a whopping 56 three-point shots in the two games, making just 19 of them, which is disappointing for a team that led the country in this category at 41.5%. Yet the offense was the same free-flowing, unselfish and pass-heavy one we saw last season. Senior center Will Artino was highly efficient with his touches in the paint in limited minutes, with sophomore Isaiah Zierden providing strong scoring output off the bench. Look for Toby Hegner to make a name for himself this season: the 6’9 freshman contributed 17 points and seven rebounds, including 3-of-6 shooting from deep.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Big East microsite will preview each Big East team in tiers in preparation for the season’s tipoff. The bottom tier was released earlier this week; it can be found here. Yesterday: the middle tier of the conference. Today: the top tier, including Xavier, Georgetown and Villanova.

#3: Xavier

Xavier’s Matt Stainbrook is a Load on the Blocks

Xavier’s projected top three finish is less a testament to the team being talented and more a statement about the lack of quality, NCAA-caliber teams in the Big East this season. But that’s not to say the Musketeers will be a bad team. Senior Matt Stainbrook, arguably the conference’s most talented big man, will play a crucial role in serving as the team’s go-to scorer and anchor in the paint. While the 6’10” center has not been considered a primary option in his career, he has started in almost every game dating back to his first two years at Western Michigan. Coming off a season in which he averaged 10.6 points on 55.6 percent shooting (second in the Big East) and 7.4 rebounds (5th in the Big East) in just 24.4 minutes per game, head coach Chris Mack knows what he has in Stainbrook. With the departure of leading scorer Semaj Christon to the NBA, Stainbrook will be the team’s number one option. Also gone from last year’s NCAA Tournament team are two additional starters: junior forward Justin Martin (transfer) and senior forward Isaiah Philmore (graduation), who together combined for 29 percent of the team’s total points per game.

Yet the Musketeers still find themselves with a projected third place finish. Aside from Stainbrook, there are two reasons for this. First, point guard Dee Davis is back for his senior season. Davis has shown over his career that he can run an offense, averaging 4.7 assists per game last season (second in the Big East) with an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.5-to-1. Second, Xavier brings in guard Remy Abell, an Indiana transfer, and six new freshman in an incoming class that ranks as one of the best in the program’s history. Headlining this list is 6’5 forward Trevon Bluiett, who could very well be the conference’s second best freshman behind Isaiah Whitehead. Bluiett is a big time scorer at the wing, and he will most likely see immediate playing time in the starting lineup as the Musketeers’ depth at the wings is limited. Additionally, the development of rising sophomores Jalen Reynolds and Myles Davis, who round out the starting lineup, will be instrumental in determining Xavier’s postseason success. Both players have shown flashes coming off the bench, but will need to find consistency if Xavier is to push for another NCAA Tournament bid. Given the team’s relatively weak non-conference schedule this season, the Musketeers will have to capitalize on their games versus projected conference front-runners Georgetown and Villanova.

#2: Georgetown

Read the rest of this entry »

The Atlantic Coast Conference looks poised to have a dominant season among basketball’s top conferences, boasting four of the nation’s preseason top 10 teams in Duke, North Carolina, Virginia and Louisville. After a short one-year stint in the American Athletic Conference, Louisville is the latest former Big East team to join the ACC, while the Blue Devils, Tar Heels and Cavaliers are ACC mainstays — each hopes to carry the conference banner to the finish line in March. Virginia wants to defend its conference title and prove last season wasn’t a fluke; Louisville hopes to send a message in its ACC debut; and the Tobacco Road teams are hoping to make it back to their rightful place in the Sweet Sixteen and beyond. Simply put, the ACC is going to be a war at the top of the standings, and each team has a major driver pushing it this year.

Virginia’s ascendance will only help the ACC’s argument that it’s the premier basketball conference (USA Today Sports)

This season marks the third time since 2002 that a conference has had four teams in the preseason top 10. Ironically, both of these instances came courtesy of the Big East. In 2011, the conference placed Connecticut and current ACC members Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Louisville within the top 10; and in 2008, Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Louisville, and another current ACC member, Notre Dame, topped the list. In each of those years, the ACC’s only two representatives were — who else? — Duke and North Carolina. This definitely speaks to the prestige of the basketball programs that the ACC has added in recent years, and it’s not implausible to think the ACC could place even more than four squads in the top 10 in coming seasons.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Big East microsite will preview each Big East team in tiers in preparation for the season’s tipoff on Friday. The bottom tier was released yesterday; it can be found here. Today: Seton Hall, Providence and St. John’s make up the middle tier of the conference.

#6: Seton Hall

The Kevin Willard era hasn’t been great so far, but this might be his most talented team. (Getty)

The Kevin Willard era at Seton Hall has not been a successful one by any stretch of the imagination. After a 21-10 season at Iona in 2010, Willard’s Pirates have continually found themselves outmatched by Big East opponents, producing just one subsequent season above .500 during his tenure. Yet you can’t argue with his recruiting results of late: In 2013, Willard brought in four-star point guard Jaren Sina, a highly-skilled passer and shooter who was coveted coming by many, with offers from the likes of Memphis, Villanova and Pittsburgh. This year Willard brings in a top-tier recruit in shooting guard Isaiah Whitehead, who ranks #2 in the country at his position. Couple him with a 6’8″ four-star power forward in Angel Delgado, a strong rebounder for his size, and four other three-star recruits and Willard’s latest recruiting class was ranked 12th nationally as a result. Whitehead’s impact is expected to be immediate — the 6’4″ shooting guard was a McDonald’s All-American and has shown an ability to score in a number of different ways. It should come as no surprise that the media pegged him as the favorite to win this season’s Big East Freshman of the Year award. His talent, in addition to the return of backcourt mates Sterling Gibbs and Sina, will without question force opponents to play small in order to contest the Hall’s perimeter attack and stop transition buckets. However, the Pirates also lose three senior starters and junior forward Patrick Auda, and their collective loss of leadership will not go unnoticed. Rising senior Brandon Mobley will also need all the frontcourt help he can get from Delgado and redshirt freshman Rashed Anthony. The Pirates are expected to feature some three-guard sets, and should boast one of the best backcourts in the conference — the key will be finding ways to mask their relative lack of size in the paint, which wasn’t as big of a problem with Gene Teague. An NIT berth is certainly not out of the question for this young, talented squad, and it will completely depend on how well the backcourt gels over the course of the season. Read the rest of this entry »

The Big East microsite will preview each conference team in tiers in preparation for the season tipoff on Friday night.

#10: DePaul. As a perennial Big East bottom-dweller, it should come as no surprise that DePaul finds itself at the bottom of the preseason list once again. Turnovers and shooting percentages were abysmal last season (#269 and #257, respectively), and the team was too focused on pushing the pace to get crucial stops down the stretch (#326 in opponents’ effective field goal percentage). The loss of three contributors from last season’s 12-21 squad and an underwhelming recruiting class puts DePaul right where they finished last season: dead last. However, that’s not to say things won’t turn around here eventually. The team returns two key sophomores in Billy Garrett Jr., a 6’6 guard with the ball-handling skills of a one and the length of a small forward, and Tommy Hamilton, a 6’10” sophomore whose shooting ability makes him a mismatch for most defenders. To offset the loss of last year’s go-to guy, Brandon Young, DePaul has brought in a recruiting class featuring a transfer from Illinois, Myke Henry, and three junior college players, who, along with lone senior Jamee Crockett, are expected to offer much needed experience. Anyone who has watched the Blue Demons recently knows that there are a handful of talented pieces here that could serve as building blocks for the future, but with every step forward, there are two steps back. Garrett and Hamilton will certainly improve, but these are players who haven’t yet been asked to lead a winning program. With Young and running mate Cleveland Melvin now gone, defenses will turn their attention to Garrett and force other players to score. It appears to be yet another long season for DePaul.

Greg McDermott Needs to Figure Out What to Do Next (Getty Images).

#9: Creighton. Last season’s success marked a coming of age of sorts for Creighton. Four-year star Doug McDermott won the National Player of the Year award and graduated with the honor of ranking fifth all-time in points scored at the Division I level; the team posted its fourth consecutive 20-win season and was invited to its third consecutive NCAA Tournament; and the Bluejays ran one of the most efficient offenses in the country. But gone are the players who got them there. Four of the team’s five starters have since graduated, leaving senior point guard Austin Chatman to fill the void as the lone returning player who averaged more than 17 minutes per game. He will be joined by seniors Devin Brooks and Will Artino along with rising sophomore Isaiah Zierdan in what will without question be called a rebuilding year. Head coach Greg McDermott will likely be more concerned with the cohesion and development of his top recruits, Ronnie Harrell and Leon Gilmore, the first of whom has drawn favorable comparisons to former Creighton star Kyle Korver. Both should fill in nicely for a team that will lack depth at the forward position. Perhaps a projected ninth-place finish in this conference is too harsh given the return of four seniors who have plenty of experience playing in the Creighton system, but there are too many question marks around how they will perform without their All-American scoring machine in the lineup. Although there is enough talent here to finish much higher, such a result will be highly dependent on whether Artino, Brooks and the other former role players who flourished when McDermott drew the attention of defenses can prove themselves as reliable Big East starters. For now, the safe bet is on no.

Read the rest of this entry »

When the most recent jumble of conference realignment was underway, the ACC squarely targeted the Big East for its newest conquests. Commissioner John Swofford wanted to add programs that were strong in the revenue sports of football and basketball, holding distinctive geographic locations that would open up the conference to new fans and marketing possibilities. The ACC won out in a big way, snagging prominent athletic programs at Syracuse, Louisville, Notre Dame and Pittsburgh from the old Big East. While these programs are have had varying degrees of success in the sport that drives realignment, Notre Dame is the only football name brand (and the Irish retained their football independence). So while the current athletic landscape is shaped by the financial juggernaut that is college football, the ACC locked up some of the country’s most elite basketball programs.

UConn has a rising star in Head Coach Kevin Ollie (credit: CT Post)

So while the ACC may have sought greater football legitimacy as its primary goal, the league also landed two massively successful basketball programs in Syracuse and Louisville. As a result, the ACC may very well have positioned itself as the basketball conference of the future, made up of most if not all of the best programs up and down the East Coast. That is, with one notable exception. As the league plundered the Big East, it may have made a drastic mistake from a basketball perspective. The ACC left behind a basketball powerhouse in its own right, Connecticut, a school that all but pleaded for entry into the ACC and a Final Four participant in a season when no conference team made it past the Sweet Sixteen. Recall the silly preseason talk about how the ACC was supposed to be ‘the best ever’, and it leaves you wondering if the exclusion of a program like UConn was the right move. The basketball program based in Storrs has had continued and sustained excellence in the sport over a long period of time, winning the national title three times since 1999 (as well as 2004 and 2011), and putting 13 players into the NBA as lottery picks since 1994. Few programs can match that record.

Read the rest of this entry »

When Virginia Tech announced on Friday that it had poached head coach Buzz Williams from Marquette to replace the recently-fired James Johnson, the immediate reaction was that of general astonishment. Why on Earth would Williams leave a team he’d taken to the postseason in five out of six years on the bench to a program that had only reached the Big Dance once since 1996 and has finished last in the ACC three years running? While the reasons, thoroughly outlined here, became more apparent in the ensuing days, the real story is the amazing acquisition made by new Virginia Tech athletic director, Whit Babcock. The hiring of Williams and the way it managed to circle all of the major media outlets during the opening weekend of NCAA Tournament play, gave the Hokies basketball program something it hasn’t experienced in years: instant credibility.

Buzz Williams’ Virginia Tech PR campaign included a TNT appearance during the NCAA Tournament (cbssports.com)

Williams oversaw a very successful Marquette program in the Big East, going an impressive 139-69 in his six years at the helm and taking the school to two Sweet Sixteen appearances and an Elite Eight run. No doubt his ability to navigate a difficult conference schedule (prior to realignment) and enjoy postseason success was extremely attractive to a Hokies program just trying to get noticed. Williams obviously looked around the ravaged Big East — a conference that the ACC raided to bring in Syracuse, Notre Dame, and Pittsburgh — and saw a chance to jump to the premier basketball conference in the land to match wits with four Hall of Fame coaches in Roy Williams, Rick Pitino, Jim Boeheim, and Mike Krzyzewski. Some may have originally seen the move as a bizarre one (especially Williams’ pay cut from $3 million to $2.3 million annually) , but coupling the chance to compete in the new-look ACC with the uncertainty in the Marquette administration as well as the state of the weakened Big East, the decision began to make more sense.

Read the rest of this entry »