Believe the hype. The Big East, which sent a record-setting six teams to the 2006 NCAA tournament and tied that record last season, could send seven or even eight teams into the thick of March Madness this year. If the AP preseason rankings hold true, seven Big East teams will be ranked in the top twenty-five. The conference could, in the words of Louisville Coach Rick Pitino, go down as “the strongest league in the history of college basketball.”
So what does this mean for Georgetown, which plays eighteen in-conference games, including nine on the road? First, it will be nearly impossible to dominate the Big East the way Georgetown has the past two seasons, during which the Hoyas went an aggregate 28-6 against Big East teams and secured the first back-to-back regular season championships since Connecticut did so in 1997-1999. Georgetown will play tough conference road games against #2-ranked Connecticut, #9 Notre Dame, and #17 Marquette, as well as facing #3 Louisville and #5 Pittsburgh at home.
Much of the reason for the Big East’s competitive nature is its size. With sixteen teams, the Big East is significantly larger than its rivals the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big 12, and Conference America, each with twelve teams, the Big Ten, with eleven, and the Pac-10, which has ten teams. A larger conference means more in-conference games and more competition for the automatic bid that comes with a conference tournament championship. This can work in a team’s favor when the conference is weak and the conference play inflates a team’s winning percentage. When a large conference is strong, however, the opposite happens; this year several of the teams in the Big East will see their winning percentages fall as games that were once considered easy wins turn into tightly contested brawls.
In addition to size, over the past couple of years the Big East teams have enjoyed one of the highest retention rates of any conference. This year, Connecticut will return all of its impact players, including junior center Hasheem Thabeet, perhaps the best defensive player in the nation, and senior guard AJ Price, whose injury in last year’s NCAA tournament helped sink the Huskies’ championship hopes. Also returning for another season are Notre Dame’s Big East Player of the Year Luke Harangody, Pittsburgh’s Sam Young, and Marquette’s Jerel McNeal.
With the departure of Roy Hibbert, Jonathan Wallace, Patrick Ewing Jr., Vernon Macklin, and Jeremiah Rivers, Georgetown finds itself at a disadvantage against teams like Connecticut, against whom the Hoyas open conference play on December 29. The Hoyas will need big output and leadership from Captain Jessie Sapp, junior Dajuan Summers, and sophomores Austin Freeman and Chris Wright if they want to match up well against conference rivals and secure a berth in the NCAA tournament. We could even see a repeat of the 1985 tournament, which saw three Big East teams in the Final Four. Believe the hype-the Big East is that good.
Find out if Jeff lives up to the hype at jgb39@georgetown.edu.
