Realignment. We all know it was football-driven, but it had plenty of impact on college hoops. The Big East, as we knew it, is gone. The American Athletic Conference was born from realignment and looks fairly strong -- for now. (Louisville will leave in 2014.)
The new, all-powerful ACC can raise its hand as the clear-cut victor of realignment, adding Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Notre Dame this season and Louisville next season.
But who are the losers?
With college basketball around the corner -- practice begins in less than a month -- it’s time to take a look at the conferences that took the biggest hit via realignment.
1. Big East
Just two seasons ago, the league sent a record 11 teams to the NCAA tournament. It had eight teams in the field in 2006, 2008 and 2010. Now it’ll be lucky to get a handful. The new-look Big East has 10 members, and it’s a basketball-centric conference. Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Notre Dame left for the ACC, and Louisville, UConn, Cincinnati, South Florida and Rutgers will also head into the American Athletic Conference.
The good news is that there isn’t much disparity from the top team, whatever it may be this season, and the seventh or eighth team in the league. Xavier, Creighton and Butler were added, but the Bulldogs will take a significant hit with the departure of Brad Stevens to the NBA and the loss of key player Roosevelt Jones. The Bluejays have a chance to win the league this season, but will they remain contenders in the post-Doug McDermott era?
admin wrote:I'm not an ESPN insider so I don't have access to the whole Goodman article, but this is getting a little old as ESPN tries to discredit the Big East every chance they get. Yes we lost some good schools but we trimmed the fat to basically nothing and have the best basketball-centric 10 team league in America. We'll be lucky to get a handful of teams in the NCAA? How about around 50% of the league?Realignment. We all know it was football-driven, but it had plenty of impact on college hoops. The Big East, as we knew it, is gone. The American Athletic Conference was born from realignment and looks fairly strong -- for now. (Louisville will leave in 2014.)
The new, all-powerful ACC can raise its hand as the clear-cut victor of realignment, adding Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Notre Dame this season and Louisville next season.
But who are the losers?
With college basketball around the corner -- practice begins in less than a month -- it’s time to take a look at the conferences that took the biggest hit via realignment.
1. Big East
Just two seasons ago, the league sent a record 11 teams to the NCAA tournament. It had eight teams in the field in 2006, 2008 and 2010. Now it’ll be lucky to get a handful. The new-look Big East has 10 members, and it’s a basketball-centric conference. Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Notre Dame left for the ACC, and Louisville, UConn, Cincinnati, South Florida and Rutgers will also head into the American Athletic Conference.
The good news is that there isn’t much disparity from the top team, whatever it may be this season, and the seventh or eighth team in the league. Xavier, Creighton and Butler were added, but the Bulldogs will take a significant hit with the departure of Brad Stevens to the NBA and the loss of key player Roosevelt Jones. The Bluejays have a chance to win the league this season, but will they remain contenders in the post-Doug McDermott era?
yorost wrote:I don't disagree with Goodman, depending on what he means by handful. The Big East from last year to this year did take a significant drop, how many of us from the seven wouldn't prefer that the Big East had not fallen apart? It's true we don't have a blue blood anchor, Georgetown is a little short and suffering a tad in image because of their recent flame outs. They're the best we got, to go with a healthy dose of solid programs Anyone who focuses on ranking conferences weighted to the top teams should rank us lower than anyone that looks at the whole of a conference.
If his handful means 6, then yeah, we'd be lucky to land that many in the field. If he meant lucky to get 3, then sure, he's being a bit negative, less than 3 would be an outright disaster.
admin wrote:Having a bit of a twitter-war with Goodman as we speak.
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