I had written most of a full on article on the Marquette-Notre Dame, but I realized I didn’t have that many new or interesting things to say about it, especially about the Irish. So, instead, I’m going to do one of those lazy, bullet-point-itemed pieces — one that will include topics beyond Marquette-Notre Dame, the kind of stories that get the worn-out baseball beat writer through the dog days of summer (not that I’m worn out).
• I’m not sure that fans around the country realize how dire a situation Notre Dame is in. The Coaches Poll still assigned a little number next to the Irish this week despite a third straight loss on Saturday to Connecticut, which indicates to most that NDU has nothing to worry about. Most prognosticators — you can see BaselineStats.com’s projection listed under “Base” — still had the Irish in the field entering Monday’s matchup with Marquette, and five projectors who put who new brackets on Monday even had Notre Dame at a No. 6 seed or higher. I think they’re wrong.
• I can’t remember how many times in the Big Monday broadcast that the three announcers, and Sean McDonough especially, mentioned that this was the first real test for Marquette against the Big East’s elite. But the Golden Eagles had already beaten West Virginia and Villanova, albeit at home. So, what McDonough was implying is that there’s an elite tier in the Big East of which Notre Dame is a part and of which West Virginia and Villanova are not a part. Huh? I love that Big Monday crew, but someone should have stopped the madness — I’m looking at you, Jay Bilas.
• I’d submit that it’s not necessarily a matter of depth or endurance that bewitches Notre Dame down the stretch of games, as the Irish were even with 3:30 to go before losing to Marquette, 71-64. In close games in Big East play, most teams are going to play just a few players for almost the entire game. We saw Earl Clark and Terrence Williams play almost the entire game of Louisville’s overtime win over Notre Dame. UConn, as well, played three players at least 35 minutes and another for at least 33 in the Huskies’ win on Saturday. What Mike Brey expects from his best players in terms of endurance isn’t all that different than what Buzz Williams, Jim Calhoun and Rick Pitino expect. Fatigue may be an issue, but Notre Dame — especially Kyle McAlarney and Ryan Ayers — simply hasn’t hit shots. Teams are not having much trouble chasing McAlarney around, and those 25-footers aren’t falling like they were. As for Ayers, well, he had enough open looks on Monday to score 15 points; instead, he had none.
• It’s always a mistake to go down a schedule and check off wins and losses, because it never works out that way, but the Golden Eagles are looking at a schedule where their next six games feature just two of the Big East’s top 11 teams — a home date with Georgetown on Saturday and a trip to Villanova on Feb. 10. It seems likely that MU will enter a brutal five-game stretch to end the season at 11-2 or better in the Big East. But that last sentence was probably a mistake.
• Oklahoma State showed me, in its 89-81 loss to Oklahoma on Monday night, that the Cowboys may have enough to stick around in the at-large discussion for the entire season. OSU uses its quickness to force turnovers (23 on Monday) and to hit threes (12 on Monday), and the Cowboys stayed this close with James Anderson playing just 24 minutes — pretty impressive. But maybe I’ve set the bar too low for Travis Ford’s team.
• Siena hung on to defeat Iona, 69-68, on Monday in Albany. The win was hardly impressive for the Saints, considering the Gaels are merely a middle-of-the-pack MAAC team, but the Saints did continue to combine forced turnovers (15) with few opponents foul shots (eight) in a fashion that makes my shoutout to Fran McCaffery on Sunday look smart. Siena remains atop the MAAC at 10-0 in league play.
• I was very disappointed to discover on Monday that Wednesday’s matchup between Syracuse and Providence would not be available on New York television. If anyone knows of a good bar where I could take in the game, please hit me up.
6 Comments
I’d say for every point he misses or is flat out wrong about, Bilas still makes two to three decent points. Tonight he missed a few, but the only one off the top of my head I disagreed with was that the Big East was without question the best conference this year, something I might post about later on.
Allow me to clarify my reference to Jay Bilas. He never said that Marquette hadn’t played anyone or was a fraud because of the schedule — that was more implied by Sean McDonough — but he also didn’t take the opportunity to rebut McDonough’s point.
Something like — “Let’s be real here, Sean. What makes Notre Dame far superior than anyone Marquette has played in conference so far? Marquette has had impressive victories against Villanova and West Virginia, both of whom are at least as good as Notre Dame, and you could make the case that both are playing better? Yes, this game is on the road while the others were at home, but let’s not go around acting like Notre Dame is in the same group as Louisville, Connecticut and Pitt.” But he didn’t say that, and because he’s known to say stuff like that, I was a bit disappointed that he didn’t step up.
Also, on Bilas and the Big East…It was interesting that Bilas had kind of flip-flopped here, and McDonough rightly called him on it. A couple of weeks ago, Bilas had said that the ACC has a right to be in the discussion for nation’s best conference. He said it on Big Monday and on at least one ACC broadcast (Duke-Florida State) that I saw. But last night he said there’s “no question” the Big East is the best conference. When McDonough asked him to explain in light of previous comments, Bilas kind of backtracked to say that 1-8 (or so) was clearly the best in the Big East.
Basically, what Bilas — I hope — was trying to say was that the Big East has the greatest depth of good teams in the country (be it by total teams or percentage of the league), but the ACC is just as clearly a better league top to bottom. DePaul, I’m pointing my Interweb finger at YOU.
Why isn’t the Big Ten in the discussion as best LEAGUE. While the ACC and Big East are top heavy, compared to the Big Ten, the Big Ten is tougher top to bottom
RPI Top 50
Big East: 8 of 16 teams (50%)
ACC: 7 of the 12 teams (58.33%)
Big Ten: 8 of 12 (66.67%)
RPI TOP 100
Big East: 11 of 16 teams (68.75%)
ACC: 9 of 12 teams (75%)
Big Ten: 10 of 11 (90.91%)
Hence, teams like Pittsburgh (6 of 18 games against sub100 RPI teams), UConn (6 of 18 games against sub100 RPI teams), Marquette (5 of 18 games against sub 100 RPI teams), North Carolina (5 of 18 against sub100), and Wake Forest (5 of 18) get a significant number of “breaks” in their schedule to bear up against the stronger conference compatriots. Meanwhile, nearly every game is a battle in the Big Ten: Purdue has 17 of 18 conference games against RPI top 100 teams, MSU and Illinois have 16 of 18 games against RPI top 100 teams.
GBBound,
Great points. As two Big Ten alums, we appreciate the props, and in terms of results and strength of schedule, the Big Ten is right there with the ACC and probably ahead of the Big East. This is a big part of the reason why the Big Ten is likely to get seven bids to the NCAAs, has nine teams in the discussion and will likely have a higher percentage of its league in the NCAA Tournament and the NCAA and NIT combined than any other league.
In fact, the first words out of my mouth on a recent appearance on SNY were to rebut another panelist who claimed the Big East was CLEARLY the best conference. I said that, while the Big East had the best 1-8, the Big Ten and ACC had played much better, top-to-bottom, outside of conference.
On the other hand, I’m of the opinion that the Big Ten’s results make the league look better than it actually is. You can’t take away all those good wins and they should be credited to the league in bids and seeding come Tourney time, but I do think the teams in the league overperformed out of conference as a group, which makes the RPI look more favorably on the league than is probably accurate.
We plan to take a more extensive look at the major conferences in comparison to each other soon, and your points are certainly a great starting point.
Do you follow the Big Ten as a whole or any team specifically? Or are you simply a hoops fan who thinks the Big Ten is getting the shaft?
While I’m not a Notre Dame fan, I think you should note that Notre Dame is actually the University of Notre Dame, UND, or more commonly referred to simply as ND. By referring to NDU, you imply that it is Notre Dame University. To hit close to home, I bet you wouldn’t want Providence College referred to as PU, for Providence University. Same idea.
More to the point of your post, I think that saying that MU has not yet played the elite teams in the conference is somewhat true, but only because they are in the process of redefining the elite. At the beginning of the season, it was expected that the 8 or 9 top teams would all be solid, and not far behind UConn, Pitt, Louisville. G’town, ND, Marquette, Villanova, Syracuse and WVU would be right with them. Rather than not having played any elite teams, in beating ND, WVU and Villanova, MU has helped to knock them from the ranks of the elite. I think that I am most surprised at how early there seems to be some separation happening in the BEast standings, with four teams with just 1 or no losses, and the other expected elite teams with 3, 4 or 5 losses. Surprising PC is the bridge with just 2 losses.
I’m sure this will continue to be reorganized as each team goes through their gauntlet (ND is in theirs, MU’s is at the end of the season), but by beating ND, WVU and Villanova, MU may have gone a long way towards helping the BEast tourney seeding by having tie-breaker victories if the standings tighten up at the end of the season. Some folks on MU boards are speculating that our season finale when Syracuse comes to Milwaukee may well be the game that determines the fourth seed, and last 2 game bye, in the BEast tourney.
Thanks for your great work and insights.
MUfan,
Good stuff. 1) You’re right on Notre Dame. I knew it was the University of Notre Dame, but it slipped my mind upon abbreviation for some reason.
2) Your points on the tiers of the Big East are well-founded, although I think West Virginia is very good. If I were to bet on who would be fighting for 4-5 with Marquette, my money would be on West Virginia. And, of course, MU has the edge there with the head-to-head.
Thanks for keeping us accountable and for your thoughtful comment.