THE BIG EAST CONFERENCE

[tribe_pride]

Hey,Nova...

Quit **** around and kill these ****

Haha. This may be more painful for Creighton than a blowout.

[clenz]

Hey,Nova...

Quit **** around and kill these ****

Haha. This may be more painful for Creighton than a blowout.

No.


Fuck Creighton.



Destroy them in every single way, shape and form every single fucking game of the season.

[vutomcat]

The Big 10 of this year looks pretty weak to me. We will see though.

You make the only argument left in questioning the Big East this year. Without a doubt, the conference is legit top two, three, or four conferences for the regualr season. The one knock still left is whether any of the teams are capable of making it to the second week of the tourney. None of us know the answer to that and it will depend on matchups, injuries and seeding to some extent.

March Madness! Can't beat it.

Eh, they are who we thought they were. No god awful teams, one really great team, and a bunch of teams that are middling at best. And this in a year with a lot of veteran lineups. nova could really use some company in the conference at the elite level and they aren't getting it. It's like C-USA when Memphis was left holding the bag when all the other elite teams left. Looks good RPI-wise, but still lonely at the top.

So tournament teams are "middling at best"?

You are the only one left from last year still trying to shovel dirt on this elite conference. Give it up. You were wrong when you thought the Big East wouldn't survive as elite. They are #2 or 3 in the country, get used to it. The C-USA was never as good as the Big East is now. NEVER!

[vutomcat]

Haha. This may be more painful for Creighton than a blowout.

No.


**** Creighton.



Destroy them in every single way, shape and form every single **** game of the season.

This was a scary game. Nova had two games this year where the opponents just held and grabbed so much that they couldn't even run through the lanes. This was one of them. Creighton's entire team should have fouled out in the first half.

[tribe_pride]

Eh, they are who we thought they were. No god awful teams, one really great team, and a bunch of teams that are middling at best. And this in a year with a lot of veteran lineups. nova could really use some company in the conference at the elite level and they aren't getting it. It's like C-USA when Memphis was left holding the bag when all the other elite teams left. Looks good RPI-wise, but still lonely at the top.

So tournament teams are "middling at best"?

You are the only one left from last year still trying to shovel dirt on this elite conference. Give it up. You were wrong when you thought the Big East wouldn't survive as elite. They are #2 or 3 in the country, get used to it. The C-USA was never as good as the Big East is now. NEVER!

I think you are misinterpreting what he is saying. Everyone agrees that as a whole, the Big East is among the best conferences. The problem is that it only has 1 elite team and then a number of other teams who for a top conference are not very strong for the next best set of teams. The good thing is it doesn't have as many really bad teams as some of the other top conferences. Besides Villanova, the rest of the teams will have trouble getting to week 2 and if Big East only has 1 team in week 2 a year after having no teams in week 2, it is not very impressive at all for one of the top conferences.

[vutomcat]

So tournament teams are "middling at best"?

You are the only one left from last year still trying to shovel dirt on this elite conference. Give it up. You were wrong when you thought the Big East wouldn't survive as elite. They are #2 or 3 in the country, get used to it. The C-USA was never as good as the Big East is now. NEVER!

I think you are misinterpreting what he is saying. Everyone agrees that as a whole, the Big East is among the best conferences. The problem is that it only has 1 elite team and then a number of other teams who for a top conference are not very strong for the next best set of teams. The good thing is it doesn't have as many really bad teams as some of the other top conferences. Besides Villanova, the rest of the teams will have trouble getting to week 2 and if Big East only has 1 team in week 2 a year after having no teams in week 2, it is not very impressive at all for one of the top conferences.

I would like to think you are right, but, I don't think 1)comparing this Big East to C-USA , 2)stating the other tournament teams are "middling at best" and 3)stating "they are who we thought they were" is admitting the Big East is an elite conference. You have been on this site long enough to know Gannon has been a detractor of the Big East since the split and his last post is more of the same.

[GannonFan]

I think you are misinterpreting what he is saying. Everyone agrees that as a whole, the Big East is among the best conferences. The problem is that it only has 1 elite team and then a number of other teams who for a top conference are not very strong for the next best set of teams. The good thing is it doesn't have as many really bad teams as some of the other top conferences. Besides Villanova, the rest of the teams will have trouble getting to week 2 and if Big East only has 1 team in week 2 a year after having no teams in week 2, it is not very impressive at all for one of the top conferences.

I would like to think you are right, but, I don't think 1)comparing this Big East to C-USA , 2)stating the other tournament teams are "middling at best" and 3)stating "they are who we thought they were" is admitting the Big East is an elite conference. You have been on this site long enough to know Gannon has been a detractor of the Big East since the split and his last post is more of the same.

Not comparing it to the C-USA now, that's you making that assumption. I clearly referenced when Memphis was left after Cincy/Louisville/St Louis/Marquette/DePaul left C-USA (which was the Great Midwest Conference not too long before those guys left) for different conferences. At that time, a very good C-USA (and a C-USA that was better than the Big East is today) was certainly made weaker, even though a top 10 Memphis program was still there.

I still say that the Big East isn't a, as you refer to it, a "top 2 or 3" conference in the country. RPI-wise, sure you can make that argument, but nobody really uses the RPI to compare conferences in the first place. There's no denying that nova is fantastic - they are a top 4 team. But when the ACC (which I think is behind the Big East in RPI - are you again saying the Big East is better than the ACC like you have before?) will get at least 5 teams in with none of them being worst than a 5 seed, are you saying that the Big East getting their teams 2 through 6 in as no better than 6 seeds is better? The Big East is what we thought they were - a conference with a very good team and then a bunch of teams that aren't horrible but not very good teams either. Most of the 5 other teams getting in from the Big East will be seeded 6 through 10, or roughly "middle" of the seedings. Is that's not "middling" . You're letting your hate for anyone that doesn't call the Big East, as a conference, elite, get in the way of your argument. The Big East isn't as good as the ACC and Big 12, and it's not even close. Are you arguing otherwise?

[vutomcat]

I would like to think you are right, but, I don't think 1)comparing this Big East to C-USA , 2)stating the other tournament teams are "middling at best" and 3)stating "they are who we thought they were" is admitting the Big East is an elite conference. You have been on this site long enough to know Gannon has been a detractor of the Big East since the split and his last post is more of the same.

Not comparing it to the C-USA now, that's you making that assumption. I clearly referenced when Memphis was left after Cincy/Louisville/St Louis/Marquette/DePaul left C-USA (which was the Great Midwest Conference not too long before those guys left) for different conferences. At that time, a very good C-USA (and a C-USA that was better than the Big East is today) was certainly made weaker, even though a top 10 Memphis program was still there.

I still say that the Big East isn't a, as you refer to it, a "top 2 or 3" conference in the country. RPI-wise, sure you can make that argument, but nobody really uses the RPI to compare conferences in the first place. There's no denying that nova is fantastic - they are a top 4 team. But when the ACC (which I think is behind the Big East in RPI - are you again saying the Big East is better than the ACC like you have before?) will get at least 5 teams in with none of them being worst than a 5 seed, are you saying that the Big East getting their teams 2 through 6 in as no better than 6 seeds is better? The Big East is what we thought they were - a conference with a very good team and then a bunch of teams that aren't horrible but not very good teams either. Most of the 5 other teams getting in from the Big East will be seeded 6 through 10, or roughly "middle" of the seedings. Is that's not "middling" . You're letting your hate for anyone that doesn't call the Big East, as a conference, elite, get in the way of your argument. The Big East isn't as good as the ACC and Big 12, and it's not even close. Are you arguing otherwise?

There are many ways to rank the different conferences. Take Sagarin and RPI,they both rank the Big East above the ACC. And, you couldn't be more wrong, lots of people use the RPI including the NCAA tournament committee. Whether you rank the Big East #2 this year or down as low as #4 or #5 out of 35 conferences there is no doubt they are an elite conference. You're the only nitwit left arguing this point.

Here's a Ken Pom article from late January that does a pretty good job of showing how many different ways you can rate the conferences. The Big East this year is anywhere from #2 thru #5 using all the different angles.


January 28, 2015

The debate over which conference is the nation’s best is fairly low on my list of priorities this time of year, mainly because there’s no accepted way of measuring conference strength. At least when comparing teams, one might agree on a method of comparison. Or the teams in question might actually play each other, providing some evidence to guide the discussion. Conferences don’t actually play each other and figuring out how to compare one group of teams to another is a challenge.

Typically, when someone asserts that this conference is the best or that conference is overrated, there is no interest in discussing the details of how that conclusion is reached. But the details are important because there are many ways to determine conference strength. Let’s look at a few of these methods and determine which conference can plausibly be considered the best in the land to this point.

Average strength of the teams. This is what I use on my site. It’s good enough for most cases, but if you’re more interested in the strength at the top of the conference, then it could leave you unsatisfied. The biggest weakness of this method is that an outlier can skew the rating. Whether San Jose State is merely one of the ten worst teams in Division-I or worse than about 200 D-II teams (as the Massey Ratings suggest) shouldn’t affect our perception of the Mountain West much, but it makes a difference when computing average strength. If you use this method and my ratings, the Big 12 is the best conference in the nation by a healthy margin over the Big East and the ACC. Though almost any ratings system you use will give you the Big 12 as the best conference using average strength.

Median strength of the teams. We can completely remove the San Jose State effect by looking at the median strength of the teams. As far the effect on the top conferences, this only increases the Big 12’s dominance since its middle teams are actually in my system’s top 20, while the ACC falls off rather quickly after you get past its top five. The Big East becomes the clear second-best conference in this scheme.
The “Tri-Mean”. Jeff Sagarin uses something called the tri-mean to rank conferences. This is essentially a compromise between the average and median, giving more weight to the average teams in a conference, but still giving some weight to the outliers. I haven’t run this on my numbers, but he has the Big 12 over the Big East and ACC and I suspect my results would be the same.

Projected tournament teams. Counting methods like this are generally unfair to smaller conferences. Consider that the 2011 Big East sent 11 teams to the tournament positioning itself as the best conference of all time in the minds of some. But the current configuration of the Big 12 can’t match this simply because it only has ten members.

This gets to the ultimate challenge of ranking conferences: handling leagues of different sizes. On the one hand, using a counting measure puts a smaller conference at a disadvantage, but a percentage measure is unfair to larger conferences. The latest consensus bracket at bracketmatrix.com has seven teams each from the ACC, Big 12, and Big East. The Big 12 appears likely to get 70 percent of its teams into the tournament. (I’m not as confident about the Big East accomplishing this.) In order for the ACC to do this, it would need to put a record-tying 11 teams in the tourney. At any rate, since current brackets have the ACC with two one-seeds and five teams seeded four or better, this method favors it as the best league.
Projected Final four teams. Maybe you only really care about the teams capable of winning a national title in each conference. Based on probabilities at TeamRankings.com, here are the expected number of Final Four teams for each of the top six conferences: ACC 1.08, SEC 0.67, Big Ten 0.55, Pac 12 0.44, Big 12 0.43, Big East 0.26. I can buy the ACC as the best conference if we are focused on the best teams, but this method seems to weight the top teams too much. I don’t hear anyone making the case that the SEC is the second-best conference or that the Pac-12 is better than the Big 12.

Projected Sweet 16 teams. We can dial back the love for the top teams by looking at the projected number of Sweet 16 teams in each conference. Again, based on the probabilities at TeamRankings, here’s how the top six conferences fare: ACC 3.32, Big 12 2.37, Big Ten 1.88, Pac-12 1.51, Big East 1.39, SEC 1.24. That matches national perception a little bit better. We still have the issue of this being a counting metric which leaves the Big 12 and Big East at a disadvantage. If we normalize for the number of teams in each league, which seems like the fairest thing to do, the Big 12 would come out on top here followed closely by the ACC.

Schedule difficulty. There is something to be said for a measure that in some way accounts for the strength of the entire conference. The top of the ACC is tremendous, but it also has seven teams currently ranked 100th or worse in my ratings. That’s almost half of the conference and it leaves me uncomfortable declaring the ACC the best in the land.

A more fair way to do this, and one that I think lines up better with the conventional thinking, is to look at the expected winning percentage of a good team against a round robin of conference opponents. The definition of a good team is up for debate but fortunately it doesn’t matter for this season. If we assume greatness (pythagorean rating of .98), the expected winning percentage against each conference would be: Big 12 .881, ACC .885, SEC .898, Big East .902, Pac-12 .911, Big Ten .919.

If we assume a fringe top-ten team (pythagorean rating of .92) we get: Big 12 .649, Big East .702, ACC .704, Pac-12 .726, SEC .730, Big Ten .746.

And with a bubble-type team (pythagorean rating of .81) we get: Big 12 .428, Big East .486, Pac-12 .520, ACC .522, SEC .540, Big Ten .546. Bubble teams pick up wins over the soft underbelly of the ACC while those opportunities are fewer in the Big 12 and Big East. Thus, as we weaken the test team in these cases, the ACC gets hurt more relative to the Big 12 and Big East.

Regardless of what quality of tournament team we are talking about, the Big 12 is the toughest conference to navigate. Though there’s a reasonable debate to be had between the Big 12 and ACC when considering the difficulty for an elite-level team.

There are many different ways to measure the quality of a conference, but just about any reasonable method is going to identify the Big 12 as the best in the land. Only if one ignores the size of each league and focuses exclusively on the very best teams in each conference can the ACC

[GannonFan]

Not comparing it to the C-USA now, that's you making that assumption. I clearly referenced when Memphis was left after Cincy/Louisville/St Louis/Marquette/DePaul left C-USA (which was the Great Midwest Conference not too long before those guys left) for different conferences. At that time, a very good C-USA (and a C-USA that was better than the Big East is today) was certainly made weaker, even though a top 10 Memphis program was still there.

I still say that the Big East isn't a, as you refer to it, a "top 2 or 3" conference in the country. RPI-wise, sure you can make that argument, but nobody really uses the RPI to compare conferences in the first place. There's no denying that nova is fantastic - they are a top 4 team. But when the ACC (which I think is behind the Big East in RPI - are you again saying the Big East is better than the ACC like you have before?) will get at least 5 teams in with none of them being worst than a 5 seed, are you saying that the Big East getting their teams 2 through 6 in as no better than 6 seeds is better? The Big East is what we thought they were - a conference with a very good team and then a bunch of teams that aren't horrible but not very good teams either. Most of the 5 other teams getting in from the Big East will be seeded 6 through 10, or roughly "middle" of the seedings. Is that's not "middling" . You're letting your hate for anyone that doesn't call the Big East, as a conference, elite, get in the way of your argument. The Big East isn't as good as the ACC and Big 12, and it's not even close. Are you arguing otherwise?

There are many ways to rank the different conferences. Take Sagarin and RPI,they both rank the Big East above the ACC. And, you couldn't be more wrong, lots of people use the RPI including the NCAA tournament committee. Whether you rank the Big East #2 this year or down as low as #4 or #5 out of 35 conferences there is no doubt they are an elite conference. You're the only nitwit left arguing this point.

Here's a Ken Pom article from late January that does a pretty good job of showing how many different ways you can rate the conferences. The Big East this year is anywhere from #2 thru #5 using all the different angles.

Seth Davis says you're wrong about the RPI.

http://www.si.com/college-basketball/20 ... tournament

And there's a difference between the #5 conference and the #1. If you're now using the comparison versus the other 35 conferences as your basis point then you have gotten silly. No one is saying the conferences from #7 to #35 are any good. Just because you aren't America East or Patriot or CAA doesn't make you elite. Good, yes, elite no.

[vutomcat]

There are many ways to rank the different conferences. Take Sagarin and RPI,they both rank the Big East above the ACC. And, you couldn't be more wrong, lots of people use the RPI including the NCAA tournament committee. Whether you rank the Big East #2 this year or down as low as #4 or #5 out of 35 conferences there is no doubt they are an elite conference. You're the only nitwit left arguing this point.

Here's a Ken Pom article from late January that does a pretty good job of showing how many different ways you can rate the conferences. The Big East this year is anywhere from #2 thru #5 using all the different angles.

Seth Davis says you're wrong about the RPI.

http://www.si.com/college-basketball/20 ... tournament

And there's a difference between the #5 conference and the #1. If you're now using the comparison versus the other 35 conferences as your basis point then you have gotten silly. No one is saying the conferences from #7 to #35 are any good. Just because you aren't America East or Patriot or CAA doesn't make you elite. Good, yes, elite no.

Here's the first couple paragraphs to that article you referenced. You must have forgotten about it after you got to the end. It is the starting point of their selection process according to Seth. Sheeesh!

1. The RPI matters.

It does, but probably not the way you think.

The RPI is a metric calculated on the following formula: 25 percent a team’s record, 50 percent a team’s opponents’ record, and 25 percent a team’s opponents’ opponents’ record. It is a helpful but imperfect way of leveling the landscape so the committee can make comparisons between teams at different levels and from leagues.

Yet, most of the times when the RPI is cited, it is presented as a team’s general ranking, as in “their RPI [rank] is 52.” It is more relevant to use the RPI to break down a team’s schedule the way the committee does it, which is to organize how a team did against the top 50 of the RPI, the top 100, the bottom 100, etcetera. When the committee discusses a team's profile, its RPI rank is barely noticeable and hardly discussed.

The RPI discussion is just a starting point, not an endgame. The committee members watch a lot of games. They rely very heavily on what they see. You can debate their expertise all you want, but at the end of the day, this ain’t rocket science. They watch the games, they see all the numbers, and they render their verdicts.

[GannonFan]

Seth Davis says you're wrong about the RPI.

http://www.si.com/college-basketball/20 ... tournament

And there's a difference between the #5 conference and the #1. If you're now using the comparison versus the other 35 conferences as your basis point then you have gotten silly. No one is saying the conferences from #7 to #35 are any good. Just because you aren't America East or Patriot or CAA doesn't make you elite. Good, yes, elite no.

Here's the first couple paragraphs to that article you referenced. You must have forgotten about it after you got to the end. It is the starting point of their selection process according to Seth. Sheeesh!

1. The RPI matters.

It does, but probably not the way you think.

The RPI is a metric calculated on the following formula: 25 percent a team’s record, 50 percent a team’s opponents’ record, and 25 percent a team’s opponents’ opponents’ record. It is a helpful but imperfect way of leveling the landscape so the committee can make comparisons between teams at different levels and from leagues.

Yet, most of the times when the RPI is cited, it is presented as a team’s general ranking, as in “their RPI [rank] is 52.” It is more relevant to use the RPI to break down a team’s schedule the way the committee does it, which is to organize how a team did against the top 50 of the RPI, the top 100, the bottom 100, etcetera. When the committee discusses a team's profile, its RPI rank is barely noticeable and hardly discussed.

The RPI discussion is just a starting point, not an endgame. The committee members watch a lot of games. They rely very heavily on what they see. You can debate their expertise all you want, but at the end of the day, this ain’t rocket science. They watch the games, they see all the numbers, and they render their verdicts.

Nope, read the whole thing, including the part where the rank is "barely noticeable and hardly discussed" and "they rely very heavily on what they see".

[Seahawks08]

I would like to think you are right, but, I don't think 1)comparing this Big East to C-USA , 2)stating the other tournament teams are "middling at best" and 3)stating "they are who we thought they were" is admitting the Big East is an elite conference. You have been on this site long enough to know Gannon has been a detractor of the Big East since the split and his last post is more of the same.

Not comparing it to the C-USA now, that's you making that assumption. I clearly referenced when Memphis was left after Cincy/Louisville/St Louis/Marquette/DePaul left C-USA (which was the Great Midwest Conference not too long before those guys left) for different conferences. At that time, a very good C-USA (and a C-USA that was better than the Big East is today) was certainly made weaker, even though a top 10 Memphis program was still there.

I still say that the Big East isn't a, as you refer to it, a "top 2 or 3" conference in the country. RPI-wise, sure you can make that argument, but nobody really uses the RPI to compare conferences in the first place. There's no denying that nova is fantastic - they are a top 4 team. But when the ACC (which I think is behind the Big East in RPI - are you again saying the Big East is better than the ACC like you have before?) will get at least 5 teams in with none of them being worst than a 5 seed, are you saying that the Big East getting their teams 2 through 6 in as no better than 6 seeds is better? The Big East is what we thought they were - a conference with a very good team and then a bunch of teams that aren't horrible but not very good teams either. Most of the 5 other teams getting in from the Big East will be seeded 6 through 10, or roughly "middle" of the seedings. Is that's not "middling" . You're letting your hate for anyone that doesn't call the Big East, as a conference, elite, get in the way of your argument. The Big East isn't as good as the ACC and Big 12, and it's not even close. Are you arguing otherwise?

I can see the case for Big 12 and ACC, but once you go lower than that, you really don't have much of an argument. The Big East has been better than the Big 10 this year and the SEC is top heavy like usual. If you are going by seeding, then the Big 12 is the best conference but I could see no big 12 team making the elite 8. Kansas is not an elite team this year. As a whole though, I'll agree that the big east isn't close to the big 12 in being as good. But to say the BE isn't close to the ACC is a little out there. Past Duke and UVA, the conference plays out like the BE. I would put anyone from 3-6 of the BE against the 3-6 of the ACC on a neutral court and see what happens.

[vutomcat]

Did I just hear Dick Vitale defend Jim Boeheim? His rant was ridiculous. He really needs to retire. He thinks the coach shouldn't be held responsible for the cheating that took place under his watch! Twitter is blowing up.

[clenz]

Saw this on Twitter this morning...

[Seahawks08]

Yep, that was a sweet dunk. Too bad after a nice 20 minute showing by the Johnnies, Nova completely annihilated them.

[Twyxx7]

Saw this on Twitter this morning...

This is what I saw yesterday.


Also, this talk of the Big East's "elite" status is just stupid. There are five or six conferences in college basketball that are clearly superior to the rest. Any way you slice it, Big East is one of them. We will see how they fare come March. Between G'Town, Butler, Providence, Xavier, and St John's I would be surprised if the Big East doesn't have at least two teams that make it to the second week.

[vutomcat]

Saw this on Twitter this morning...

That's the trouble with you young ESPN age viewers. You think the game is all about a highlight reel.


SCOREBOARD!!!!

[bluehenbillk]

Considering the East Region is in Philly next year I wonder if Nova will only play 2 games there during the season so they can be placed there assuming they make it that far in '16.

[clenz]

Saw this on Twitter this morning...

That's the trouble with you young ESPN age viewers. You think the game is all about a highlight reel.


SCOREBOARD!!!!

Do you really want to question my college basketball viewership and think I'm just a highlight guy?

After the absolute beat down I laid on baseball knowledge last season?

[vutomcat]

That's the trouble with you young ESPN age viewers. You think the game is all about a highlight reel.


SCOREBOARD!!!!

Do you really want to question my college basketball viewership and think I'm just a highlight guy?

After the absolute beat down I laid on baseball knowledge last season?

Why did you post it? Because you are highlight reel ESPN generation guy. Doesn't make you a bad guy. It isn't really that bad. It does take focus off the intricacies of the game though. I don't know about your level of expertise on the game from your posts. I can tell you are a passionate fan and like to research. I like that about you. I know you hate Creighton and you were right about them collapsing in the tourney last year. I also know you have reminded me of that countless times. It's getting weird. I know you predicted Butler would be a perennial bottom dweller. You weren't right about that.

March Madness is the best time of the year!

[GannonFan]

Considering the East Region is in Philly next year I wonder if Nova will only play 2 games there during the season so they can be placed there assuming they make it that far in '16.

You would think that would be a decent idea. They played there 5 times this year and didn't come close to selling it out. G-town and St John's were the biggest draws, even eclipsing what used to be a big draw in Syracuse. But one of the 5 was against Delaware so that drew flies, and the Marquette game was half filled. I'm not sure how much they make selling it as a package and then have people really only come to 2 or 3 of the five games but if there's a chance to play a Sweet 16 and an Elite 8 basically in your own backyard I think you do that.

[vutomcat]

Considering the East Region is in Philly next year I wonder if Nova will only play 2 games there during the season so they can be placed there assuming they make it that far in '16.

You would think that would be a decent idea. They played there 5 times this year and didn't come close to selling it out. G-town and St John's were the biggest draws, even eclipsing what used to be a big draw in Syracuse. But one of the 5 was against Delaware so that drew flies, and the Marquette game was half filled. I'm not sure how much they make selling it as a package and then have people really only come to 2 or 3 of the five games but if there's a chance to play a Sweet 16 and an Elite 8 basically in your own backyard I think you do that.

HUH? WHAT?

The Center officially seats 20,318 for NBA and NCAA basketball.

Georgetown game was a sellout at 20,587
St. John's 19,161
Syracuse 18,369
Marwquette 13, 313

[GannonFan]

You would think that would be a decent idea. They played there 5 times this year and didn't come close to selling it out. G-town and St John's were the biggest draws, even eclipsing what used to be a big draw in Syracuse. But one of the 5 was against Delaware so that drew flies, and the Marquette game was half filled. I'm not sure how much they make selling it as a package and then have people really only come to 2 or 3 of the five games but if there's a chance to play a Sweet 16 and an Elite 8 basically in your own backyard I think you do that.

HUH? WHAT?

The Center officially seats 20,318 for NBA and NCAA basketball.

Georgetown game was a sellout at 20,587
St. John's 19,161
Syracuse 18,369
Marwquette 13, 313

Wiki has it as 21,315 as the paid capacity once you include the extra space in the luxury seats. Hey, I think the G-town and St John's crowds were great, Syracuse was disappointing considering the history (and Syracuse wasn't all that bad when the game happened), and the Marquette attendance was poor. Go to 2 games there (which based on this year's attendance should be very well attended) next year and use that advantage to play there for the Eastern Regional, that's what I'm saying. Do you disagree?

[Twyxx7]

The Center officially seats 20,318 for NBA and NCAA basketball.

Georgetown game was a sellout at 20,587
St. John's 19,161
Syracuse 18,369
Marwquette 13, 313

I think it is very telling about the health of the current Big East that both the G'Town and St John's games sold more than the Syracuse game. Syracuse always seemed to be the biggest draw at the Well's Fargo.

[GannonFan]

The Center officially seats 20,318 for NBA and NCAA basketball.

Georgetown game was a sellout at 20,587
St. John's 19,161
Syracuse 18,369
Marwquette 13, 313

I think it is very telling about the health of the current Big East that both the G'Town and St John's games sold more than the Syracuse game. Syracuse always seemed to be the biggest draw at the Well's Fargo.

Time of year helped too - 'Cuse was a December game while G'town and the Johnnies were February and March games. While people knew nova was good back in December, the walkup crowd had to be good considering how nova is finishing the year. Of course, Marquette, also a Big East game, and on a Saturday in February, didn't draw so well so the analogy only goes so far.