1. Syracuse and UConn seem to be moving in very different directions as basketball programs on a number of levels. Syracuse is looking for another top-10 finish to the season and a high seed in the Big Dance. UConn, on the other hand, is ineligible for all postseason play. Syracuse is moving on to the ACC, leaving behind the shell of the once-great Big East. UConn was left at the altar, wondering what its next move will be. And this week, like ships passing in the night, Syracuse gained back dynamic sixth-man James Southerland, while UConn will likely be without big man Enosch Wolf after an arrest this week. Wolf was charged with third-degree burglary, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct after refusing to leave a campus apartment and getting in a physical altercation with a female resident at 6:00 AM. According to Kevin Ollie, Wolf has been suspended indefinitely.
2. When he suffered a sprained ankle in the first half of what would become an epic five-overtime game against Louisville, Pat Connaughton probably didn’t realize how crucial his presence would be. The sophomore returned to the game later and ended up playing 56 minutes and contributing 16 points and 14 rebounds in the hard-fought Irish win. Connaughton probably didn’t feel great about it on Sunday, but luckily for him Notre Dame is off until Wednesday night when the Irish will take on DePaul. Ice up, Pat.
3. Jim Boeheim is old, you guys, and I guess it works for him. The Hall of Famer has noted on many occasions that he doesn’t own a computer, and apparently he just recently got into this whole “cell phone” business, mostly because of his young kids. However, in a shocking revelation brought on by the constant Syracuse rumor-mongering surrounding the James Southerland situation, we have now learned that Boeheim knows what a blog is! And surprise, surprise — he resents them as much as we all imagined he would!
4. Pittsburgh had a slow start to the Big East slate this year, and a lot of that derived from a lack of production from vaunted freshman center Steven Adams.  However, in recent weeks Adams has really come along with his offensive production, allowing Pitt to go back to a more traditional inside-out Panthers attack. The post presence of Adams and power forward Talib Zanna allows Jamie Dixon’s offense to harken back to the days where Levance Fields was able to feed DeJuan Blair under the hoop. The recent emergence of Adams and Zanna’s solid production opens things up for guards like Tray Woodall, who had to shoulder much of the scoring load earlier in the year.
5. Rutgers has probably played better than many expected this season, but its 3-8 conference record doesn’t really reflect it. The Scarlet Knights have been in many close games but have so far failed to contain the opposition’s best player down the stretch. This problem came to pass once again in Saturday’s 69-63 loss to Georgetown. Scoring has been an adventure for the Hoyas all season, but they have been able to get by on the shoulders of star forward Otto Porter, who led the way by scoring 19 points (including 10 of Georgetown’s final 12) and grabbing 14 boards. Good defensive teams can remove a singular threat like Porter, or at least slow him down in crunch time, but Rutgers isn’t quite there yet.

1. So, Mike Brey might be a bit prescient. Before Notre Dame’s epic five-overtime win over Louisville this weekend, the Irish coach showed his team film from great boxing matches as motivation, and made comments comparing the upcoming game to a 15-round bout. Brey may have intended his analogy to allude to Louisville’s frantic, fast-paced style of play that often wears out opponents, but as fate would have it, the game played out in a much more literal fashion. I expect that Brey will discuss first-round knockouts before this Wednesday’s game against DePaul.
2. Steve Lavin missed St. John’s Sunday loss to Syracuse due to the passing of his father Albert “Cap” Lavin. Lavin and his father were reportedly very close, and Cap had played a part in this St. John’s season earlier this year, when the Red Storm traveled west to take on his alma mater, San Francisco. According to St. John’s assistant Rico Hines, who stepped in for Lavin during his absence in Syracuse, the players took the loss hard, as they had been able to spend time with the elder Lavin this season: “They were sad. They were really sad… Cap was one of those guys that watched every game or listened to it on the radio, and those guys knew that. … They all said they’d say a prayer for him, and we’ll try to play as hard as we can.”
3. Syracuse’s long national nightmare is (probably) over. Shortly before tip-off against St. John’s Sunday, word leaked out that James Southerland had won his Friday appeal to a university academic panel, and that he’d be ready to play in the game. The re-introduction of Southerland to the team gives the Syracuse offense more potency from three-point range and vastly improves the Orange’s spacing on the floor, allowing guards Michael Carter-Williams and Brandon Triche more room to operate.  Southerland played 26 minutes off the bench against the Red Storm, scoring 13 points on 4-of-10 shooting from the field.
4. The adjustment to Division I basketball for Pitt’s Steven Adams has been a tough one, and it has apparently had a negative impact on the seven-footer’s NBA Draft stock. Adams’ play has been improving of late, and with his newfound ability, Pitt has been playing inspired basketball. The Panthers have won four of their last five contests, and during that stretch the freshman has averaged a very solid nine points, nine rebounds, and two blocks per game.
5. Cincinnati hasn’t been a pretty offensive team at all this year – without a significant low post threat like former Bearcat Yancy Gates manning the middle, it is almost entirely up to guards Sean Kilpatrick and Cashmere Wright to score in bunches from the outside.  Unfortunately for UC, that two-guard punch has been significantly hampered by a sprain to Wright’s right knee, which he sustained in a January 15 game against DePaul. Since returning from the injury, Wright has only scored in double-figures once, and as a team Cincinnati has averaged under 60 points per game during that stretch.  For a squad without many reliable offensive options, Wright needs to return to form as soon as possible or the Bearcats risk falling further down the Big East standings.

Dan Lyons is an RTC Big East microsite contributor who also writes for the Syracuse blog, “Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician.”  You can find him on Twitter @Dan_Lyons76.  He filed this report after Wednesday night’s match-up between Cincinnati and Providence at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center in Providence, Rhode Island.

Providence has played this entire season teetering on the edge.  On one side, losses to the likes of Penn State, UMass, Brown, and DePaul don’t inspire much confidence for Ed Cooley‘s squad going forward.  On the other hand, the only game this season that really got away from the Friars was the January 2nd 80-62 loss to then #4 Louisville.  Every other Friar loss has been within ten points, with two having gone to overtime – the games against Penn State and UConn.  Since the loss to UConn, however, Providence’s luck has seemed to turn a bit.  They went to Villanova, a team that had just logged back to back home wins against the conference’s two big dogs Louisville and Syracuse, and knocked off the Wildcats, and then followed that up with last night’s close win at home against #17 Cincinnati.

Kadeem Batts’ 25 points and nine rebounds were essential in Providence’s upset of #17 Cincinnati.

Providence’s road to relevance under Cooley has been a treacherous one, but there has been reason for hope.  Cooley has been recruiting well above the expectations laid forth by Providence’s 42-53 record over the last three seasons.  Last season Cooley reeled in five-star prospects Kris Dunn and Ricardo Ledo and he currently has 2013 commitment from four-star small forward prospect Brandon Austin.  He also inherited a team with capable players like Kadeem Batts, Bryce Cotton, and Vincent Council.  However, in a college basketball landscape where inexperience is no longer an excuse for poor performance, Providence’s turnaround hasn’t translated to on-the-court success as quickly as some fans probably hoped.

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Two weeks ago Villanova was a program left for dead. The young team had shown talent and promise, but they lacked consistency and blew halftime leads so regularly you would think they were trying to get beat. Then, last Tuesday, coming off a disheartening loss to lowly Providence, something happened. First the Wildcats took advantage of some awful free-throwing shooting to upset heavily favored Louisville and just four days later they took advantage of some questionable late-game strategy from Syracuse and ended up beating the Orange in overtime for their second win over a top-5 opponent in the week. The Wildcats now sit at 13-7 and 4-3 in Big East play with two marquee wins to hang their hats on. So the question is, if the season ended today, would the Wildcats be an NCAA Tournament team?

Mike:  Forget the NCAA Tournament for a minute; the program needed these ones badly if only for respectability’s sake. Since the Wildcats lost to North Carolina in the Final Four in 2009, Villanova fans have watched their program free-fall into mediocrity and losses to Columbia and Providence this season weren’t helping anyone feel hopeful about the rebuilding efforts of Jay Wright and his staff. Those two wins last week change some of that. The fan base is energized again – if only for the time being – and the team can finally start to have confidence in themselves which will only help as the season goes on. As far as their tournament chances go, I still think they are on the outside looking in. After the wins over Louisville and Syracuse, the Wildcats jumped from #73 to #49 in the official RPI of the NCAA, which was also good enough to make them one of “the last four in” according to ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi but both of those wins came at home and they are still really the only two “good wins” on the Wildcats’ resume. I guess it’s possible the NCAA could see how many games the Wildcats have let slip away and they could show some understanding, but getting blown out by Columbia at home is an excellent way to lose all of your goodwill and losing to bottom-dweller Providence isn’t going to help either. The next four games will be crucial for the team’s chances. If they can go 4-0 or even 3-1 against some of the lesser teams in the conference, they will be in a good spot for the home stretch. But lose a pair to South Florida, Providence, Notre Dame, or DePaul and the team will probably be forced to look forward to next season.

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We’ve been meaning to devote the proper attention to the lists of top players, teams and moments in NCAA Tournament history released by the NCAA last month to commemorate 75 years of March Madness. Reader Sean Revell sent us a very compelling infographic of his creation (pictured below), which distills the unceremoniously dry, sterile data tables of the NCAA press release into an engaging visual timeline.

The NCAA’s lists, in more visual terms, courtesy of Sean Revell

The image serves as a good springboard for some analysis of the lists from a Big East perspective. The league’s current members acquitted themselves well in the list of individual performances, accounting for more players (14) in the Top 75 than any other league save the ACC, which placed 16 former stars on the list. But only three Big East teams were deemed worthy of the list of Top 25 tournament teams, placing the league in the middle of the pack below the Pac-12 and ACC, with six teams apiece. Obviously, it’s impossible to please everyone with a list like this, and revisionism and presentism are unavoidable in an era where March Madness is more culturally visible and digitally accessible than ever before. But it’s worth some attempt at measured scrutiny, so here are a few thoughts on which Big East players and teams should have made the cut:

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1. Many college basketball players will rack up on-court accomplishments for four years and never even sniff the opportunity of getting their jersey retired. But when you are Carmelo Anthony, all it takes is one season and a national championship apparently. Anthony will have his jersey retired by Syracuse in February and the No. 15 of the one of the most celebrated one-and-done players in history will hang alongside Dave Bing, Derrick Coleman, and Sherman Douglas. Of course it doesn’t matter how much time he spent in school, ‘Melo obviously deserves this honor. The Baltimore native finished in the top-10 nationally in both points and rebounds and led the program to its only national championship. He, like Kevin Durant, was one of the few true NBA superstars to even play in college, and unlike Durant, he helped his school win a championship on his way to stardom. It is definitely a bit weird to see a player who basically used Syracuse as a stepping stone for one season getting his jersey retired, but if ever there was a one-and-done player who deserved to be honored this way, it’s ‘Melo.
2. Yesterday morning we told you that Georgetown’s second-leading scorer and rebounder, Greg Whittington, would miss his second game for a violation of team rules. Then, before last night’s game against Providence, it became apparent that Whittington violated the “don’t fail school” rule and his suspension will be indefinite in length. Whittington’s academic ineligibility didn’t matter last night as the Hoyas jumped out to a huge lead on the Friars and held on for a nine-point win and it seems unlikely he will miss the remainder of conference play. But this is a team with plenty of well-documented scoring issues that is fighting to stay in the top half of the conference standings, and without Whittington that will be difficult. Jabril Trawick is a nice player, but not nearly as productive as Whittington, and Aaron Bowen is at least athletic, but he is a long way from being the player that Whittington is. The Hoyas have an important game this weekend against South Florida, because dates with Notre Dame and Louisville loom after that, and the Hoyas will need every win they can get.
3. Villanova may have learned some valuable lessons from their loss to Syracuse last weekend but it didn’t show last night as the Wildcats took a slim lead into the half for the second-straight game and then gave it all back in the second half to let Pittsburgh escape with a crucial road win. The game was close for most of the second half as well but with less than six minutes to play, the Panthers clamped down on defense and held ‘Nova to zero points over the last five minutes and 13 seconds of the game while they poured in 15 of their own during that stretch to seal the victory. I will buy the argument that the Wildcats proved they have what it takes to hang with good teams in the conference, but only for a half. The Wildcats have made a habit of watching their halftime leads disappear (they did it in losses to LaSalle and Temple earlier in the season) and while some of that can be attributed to a young roster without a lot of lethal scorers, some of the blame should fall at the feet of Jay Wright, who is seemingly getting out-adjusted at halftime by every coach the Wildcats play. When Villanova was dominant, they had a roster that knew how to close out close games and keep the intensity high, this team seems to inevitably fold every time their opponents start to force the issue in the second half. If they want to return to their spot atop the conference, they will need to improve on that greatly.
4. The heart-and-soul of Cincinnati will be okay as senior guard Cashmere Wright is only day-to-day after he only sprained his knee at the end of a close win over DePaul. This is hugely important news for the Bearcats because while injuries happen to every team, Wright has been the most consistent and best player on the floor for coach Mick Cronin all season long, and I shudder to think what Cincinnati’s offense would look like without their second-leading scorer, playmaker, and floor general. The Bearcats are off until Saturday when they square off with a hot Marquette team and then play at Syracuse two days later and having Wright in the lineup for both those games will be crucial if the Bearcats want to assert their position at the top of the conference standings. It might be worth a look later in the season but I think the argument can be made that Wright is the most important player in the conference to his team.
5. Our friend Rob Dauster (#DausterForUSC) raises an excellent issue after watching Notre Dame inexplicably fall to a St. John’s team that had just been blown out by Georgetown — why was All-America candidate Jack Cooley on the bench in the closing minutes of the loss? Dauster correctly points out that Cooley had struggled mightily in the game and that the Johnnies were playing with a smaller lineup, but there can’t be too many good reasons why senior scrub Tom Knight was on the floor while he much more talented and experienced teammate watched.  The key moment came when Knight had what appeared to be an easy put-in blocked by D’Angelo Harrison and the Red Storm were able to seal the win. There is of course no way of telling whether Cooley would have fared any better in that situation, but at least if it was Cooley who had his shot-blocked then there is no need for second-guessing, you can know that you put your best player in a position to tie the game and for whatever reason he didn’t come through. But because he wasn’t in the game, fans and pundits are left to ask why Brey kept him on the bench.

1.  There is good news for Pittsburgh as senior point guard Tray Woodall‘s concussion is apparently not very severe and the playmaker will be back in action tonight when the Panthers square off with Villanova. Woodall suffered the concussion when he collided with a Marquette player four minutes into the Panthers’ overtime loss to Golden Eagles and he didn’t return. But according to Woodall, he felt fine shortly after the collision and wanted to play, but team doctors wanted to be cautious and wouldn’t let him. We are all for hedging in favor of player safety but Panthers fans should be breathing sighs of relief that Woodall is coming back so quickly. The team is about to start a crucial stretch of their conference slate and with Woodall, they stand a better chance at reeling off a few wins in a row and climbing back into the conference title race.
2. While Woodall returns tomorrow, another key member of a NCAA Tournament contender will continue to sit as Georgetown will continue to sit versatile forward Greg Whittington Wednesday for violating team rules. Reporters asked coach John Thompson III if the violations were serious and he said “yes”, so it will be interesting to see how long the coach is willing to go without his second-leading scorer and rebounder. The Hoyas dismantled St. John’s over the weekend without Whittington and they should be okay tonight against and undermanned Providence team. But after that the schedule gets more difficult again and if they are going to replace Whittington’s production they will likely need Jabril Trawick and D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera to shoulder some of the scoring load.
3. After his team was blown out by a scuffling Georgetown team, St. John’s coach Steve Lavin was repeatedly asked if he was embarrassed by his team. Those questions seem a little premature as the Red Storm bounced back last night and upset No. 20 Notre Dame behind 17 points from freshman Jakarr Sampson. The Red Storm are one of the youngest teams in the entire conference, so it shouldn’t be surprising that their season will have a lot of ups and a lot of downs. The Johnnies don’t have a lot of offensive firepower and are prone to stupid mistakes, which is a recipe for getting blown out on occasion, but last night’s win over the Fighting Irish showed that they also have the talent in place to be a good team on occasion. It isn’t likely St. John’s will find enough consistency to make the NCAA Tournament, but it does seem like they are headed that direction anyway.
4. The Juice has been covering the James Southerland story from all angles and yesterday they took a brief look at three players who needed to step up in Southerland’s absence. The players — Brandon Triche, Jerami Grant, and Trevor Cooney — should come as no surprise, but I think Grant and Cooney both have a larger opportunity to make a difference than Triche does. Triche already has an established role on the team and asking him to shoulder the responsibility of replacing Southerland’s production doesn’t make sense. It seems much more logical to have Grant or Cooney or both step up and fill the scoring void. As the column points out, Grant fits the bill because of his length and athleticism, while Cooney is a better outside shooter and more dangerous scorer. If Syracuse’s game against Villanova was any indication, both will get plenty of opportunities to play, and that will be a good thing come March.
5. This was supposed to be the season that Cincinnati guard Sean Kilpatrick exploded onto the national scene and became one of the conference’s true stars. Instead, Kilpatrick has progressed the way many thought and the Bearcats’ best player has actually been oft-unheralded senior point guard Cashmere Wright. Which is why Bearcats’ fans better be hopeful that the knee injury Wright suffered last night in a win over DePaul isn’t serious. Wright had 20 points on 8-of-11 shooting and seven assists to just two turnovers before leaving because of the injury and the floor general really has been indispensable for coach Mick Cronin and the program. Wright’s many talents were on display again last night as the Bearcats held off an upset bid from DePaul and Wright went for

1. DeAndre Daniels went off against DePaul in UConn’s 99-78 win last night, pouring in a career-high 26 points on 9-of-12 shooting. More importantly, the 6’8″ Daniels grabbed eight rebounds, marking the first time he’s collected more than five in a game since November. The Huskies rank #307 in the country in rebounds per game, and last night was their first dominant performance of the season on the boards, out-rebounding the Blue Demons by 20. In thumping DePaul, UConn scored its most points in a league game since the six-overtime battle with Syracuse in the 2009 Big East Tournament. After failing to eclipse 70 points in six of their first nine games this season, the Huskies have become more prolific since mid-December, scoring 80 in three of their last five.
2. DePaul certainly didn’t help its cause against UConn last night when news broke hours before tipoff that Donnavan Kirk and Charles McKinney had been suspended for a violation of team rules. Kirk is the Blue Demons’ tallest player at 6’9″, and appropriately leads the team in blocks at 1.9 BPG. The suspensions also left a combined 11.4 PPG on the bench. It’s unclear how long the players will be out, and it will be interesting to see who picks up the slack on both ends of the floor. DePaul returns home to face Cincinnati and St. John’s next week.
3. Just when it seemed as though Louisville had returned to full strength at the perfect time, we learned yesterday that Chane Behanan would miss seven to 10 days with a high ankle sprain he suffered in practice on Monday. He will be replaced in the starting lineup by freshman power forward Montrezl Harrell, who acquitted himself well in extensive play during Gorgui Dieng’s injury but lacks Behanan’s aggression on the boards and polished footwork in the low post. As Card Chronicle’s medical advisor points out, high ankle sprains require, on average, “three to six weeks” to fully heal, so there’s no guarantee we’ll see Behanan in the Syracuse game in 10 days.
4. After dropping its first two Big East games, Jamie Dixon’s Pittsburgh squad rebounded by traveling to D.C. and handing Georgetown its “worst loss of the JTIII era” last night. The 73-45 drubbing, which was statistically over with six minutes left, “exposed Georgetown’s limitations like none of its predecessors,” says Casual Hoya. The Hoyas have scored 46.5 PPG through two straight Big East losses, and it’s hard to visualize JTIII’s team as the contender we envisioned in the preseason given their many offensive handicaps.
5. The Big East reportedly hit up ESPN for $300 million in annual television rights during their exclusive negotiation window this past fall. This revelation was obviously met with derision and mockery across the Internet. Lost in the Big East’s implosion and subsequent media rubbernecking is the fact that the league was in the midst of negotiating a pretty lucrative television contract before the wheels finally came off. As The UConn Blog pointed out on Twitter, such an exorbitant request would have only been made to force ESPN’s hand in closing its exclusive negotiation window with the Big East, allowing the league to shop around with other networks.

As our ACC brethren noticed earlier, the NCAA released its initial RPI ratings this morning and there is plenty to note. Of course the first thing to observe is that the RPI is not the most comprehensive metric for evaluating teams and should be taken with a grain of salt. But the NCAA still uses it and you will hear plenty about it as March creeps closer, so why not give some of our early impressions of the teams from the Big East and where they stand. Some teams such as Cincinnati, which checks in at No. 34, should be content with where they are, but others in the Big East might feel a little more strongly about the current RPI.

Who Should Be Happy

• Connecticut. They won’t have the NCAA Tournament to look forward to so I guess the RPI ratings are a moot point for UConn, but they should feel pretty good about landing at No. 27 especially considering they have just one marquee win (Michigan State) and a pair of solid non-conference wins (Wake Forest, Washington) while playing just one true road game. I think KenPom — who has the Huskies ranked all the way down at No. 61 — is closer to the truth when it comes to evaluating the Huskies. And after tonight’s tilt with DePaul, they play a difficult four-game stretch that could see this rating take a tumble quickly. Of course all of this speculation is worthless because the Huskies’ RPI rating matters not this season. Why did I just write that paragraph again?
• Marquette. Not far behind UConn is the team that beat them in overtime on January 1, Marquette at No. 31. The Golden Eagles should probably also be pretty pleased with their current standing since their best win is the one-point eyesore over Georgetown on Saturday and they have another eyesore that they lost to Wisconsin-Green Bay staining the resume. My guess is they probably weren’t dinged much for losing to Florida and Butler, both of whom are in the top 20 when it comes to RPI, and the Golden Eagles do have 11 wins which can’t be ignored no matter how ugly some of them have been. Marquette’s young team will have to hold up over the course of the conference slate, but if they can do that, they will be right in the thick of the NCAA Tournament discussion.

Despite Ugly Wins, Buzz Williams’s Team Is Sitting Pretty In The RPI Ratings

• Seton Hall. The NCAA’s RPI ratings work in mysterious ways sometimes and Seton Hall — a team without any impressive wins and one of the least-difficult non-conference schedules in the entire country — is an excellent example. The Pirates are inexplicably ranked No. 49, something I am sure coach Kevin Willard won’t complain about, and it’s not obvious why. I mean, they don’t have a bad loss on their resume yet, but their best win is a 71-67 squeaker over a middling Wake Forest team. The Pirates might have enough on their roster to earn bubble consideration come March, but the better bet would be that the conference schedule will help correct this issue in short order.

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1. One could say that Kevin Ollie’s first Big East season got going in the wrong direction.  After late game heroics for both UConn and Marquette by Ryan Boatright and Junior Cadougan, respectively, the two teams lined up on the wrong sides of the center circle to begin overtime. Enosch Wolf won the tip, and Shabazz Napier had an open look on what should have been his own basket swatted away by Jamil Wilson on what normally would have been a goaltend.  After reviewing the play, the referees did not count the goaltend for UConn as the Huskies shot at the wrong basket.  However, referee Karl Hess later admitted that after letting the players play in the wrong direction, they should have given UConn the two points. UConn would go on to lose to the Golden Eagles by six, 82-76.
2. Louisville hasn’t had trouble putting points on the board, as the Cardinals are averaging 78.2 points per game so far this season. However, Rick Pitino is still not happy with his team’s defense. Louisville’s 17-point lead over Kentucky was nearly erased as the Cardinals played tentatively on defense due to foul trouble. That doesn’t gel with the high-pressure full court scheme that Pitino likes to use. Another concern is the team’s interior defense — despite the imposing presence of Gorgui Dieng (out for most of December with an injury), the Cardinals are still only 14th among Big East teams in blocked shots, a number that Pitino would surely like to move up.
3. Jim Boeheim has been the head coach at Syracuse since the nascent days of the Big East conference, so naturally he has many strong feelings and opinions about the league that he credits for his national championship and Hall of Fame induction. In a two-hour interview with USA Today, Boeheim discusses the past and future of the conference, including the near-“warfare” like atmosphere of the coaches meetings in the 1980s, the Big East media contract negotiations which broke down before Syracuse and Pittsburgh made the announcement that they would be moving to the ACC, and, of course, his future plans to coach the Orange. Boeheim keeps his plans close to the vest and marches to the beat of his own drum, but when he does decide to hang the whistle up, he is confident that the program will survive and thrive under Mike Hopkins – “I don’t have any plans on retiring, right now. Could that change? Yeah, I think that could change. But I don’t have any plans on retiring. I know Mike will be the coach and Syracuse will be in great hands… I told every recruit the last five years that I think I am going to coach but don’t know it. Mike will be the coach. And the (recruits) all came. Most recruits don’t care anymore because they only think they will be here one year.”
4. Seton Hall was sitting solidly on the bubble last March before a shocking 86-58 loss at league dregs DePaul derailed the Pirates’ dancing aspirations. Seton Hall opens its Big East season with the same road trip tonight, looking to improve on an 11-2 record with a win over an improved Blue Demons squad. While some Big East teams may lack some motivation when playing DePaul, Brandon Mobley and Seton Hall have all that they need: “If playing at DePaul is not motivation, then I don’t know what is… Not only did we lose, we got embarrassed and that cost us the NCAA Tournament. We’re going up there with a grudge on our shoulder.”
5. In news that is not directly related to basketball but may effect the futures of UConn, Cincinnati, and USF, the three schools who appear to be getting left behind by conference expansion and realignment, Boise State will no longer be joining the Big East in football. There is a good chance that San Diego State, which was also set to join for football only, may follow suit, leaving the remaining three Big East members and their future rivals in an increasingly vulnerable conference. In addition, the Mountain West has reworked its television contract which will give increased revenue to teams who make national television appearances. There have even been rumors that the MW could end up raiding the Big East for a school like Cincinnati. The conference carousel goes round and round…