This year, the Big East received the largest number of high seeds in tournament history, along with accompanying expected win totals and pressure. As Brendon pointed out in his recent column, the Big East could send two teams to the Final Four and three others to the Sweet 16 and still fall more than two shy of its 16.38 expected win total. As the only remaining region with two Big East teams still alive, the East regional will go a long way in deciding whether or not the Big East is able to meet or even exceed these expectations.


How the conferences stack up so far

As you can see, the most impressive conference at this point — and it isn’t really close — is the Big 12. The Pac-10 and Big Ten are about where we expected them to be, and the SEC was going to be a non-factor no matter what. The ACC is really, really hurting, and barring an incredible run where one team wins the championship and the other reaches the final four, the ACC will be the most under performing of the BCS Conferences (the likely most underachieving conference is actually the Mountain West). The Big East is the one conference that really has its fate left to be decided. Their top five seeds all advanced and they are looking as strong as expected, but they still need to win six games to exceed their expected win total. That equates to one team in the championship game, one team in the final four, and one in the elite 8, or some other combination of 6+ games. That is a lot more probable than the 35% odds I put on it before the start of the tournament, but a lot of their hopes are riding on Thursday night in Boston.


No. 1 Pittsburgh vs. No. 4 Xavier: The first game on Thursday will feature the top seed in the region and monkey-on-their-back Pitt Panthers against the suddenly resurgent Xavier Musketeers. I predicted a potentially dangerous first game for the Xavier against Portland State due to their poor ball-handling, but they responded with their best game of the year in that department. Pitt, meanwhile, really labored through its first two games, seeming very lackadaisical at times. That’s not something I would have expected out of such a well coached Jamie Dixon team, but the upshot is that maybe the first weekend scares focused them for practice and game-planning this week. While every team wants to advance as far as it can in the Tournament, the Panthers’ recent history makes an Elite Eight appearance more significant, and it will be interesting to see how they handle the pressure of their first No. 1 seed in the final step of that achievement. Xavier brings strong team defense together with a couple of elite 3-point shooters and an incredible ability to get to the line. B.J. Raymond, Brad Redford and Derrick Brown all shot better than 42 percent from 3-point land this year. Given Pitt’s main defensive weakness (outside of forcing turnovers) is limiting the outside shot, Xavier should have ample opportunity to hoist up open looks.


The other danger area for Pitt this year has been Dejuan Blair getting into early foul trouble. Their offense is elite — ranked second in adjusted efficiency in the nation — but the driving factor for that number is the colossal amount of extra possessions and easy putbacks that Blair garners on the offensive boards. If Blair plays limited minutes, Pitt is reduced to a decent but not stellar shooting team that doesn’t get to the line, not exactly something that will scare any of the teams left in the tournament. In that situation, the only player left that can really shape a game on the offensive end is the crafty Sam Young, but it will be too much to ask of him single-handedly against the top talent left. In the end, as long as Blair has a relatively strong performance for 30+ minutes, I think Pitt will prevail, but I wouldn’t discount Xavier, despite being the largest underdog of those playing on Thursday.


No. 2 Duke vs. No. 3 Villanova: The nightcap pits a Duke team that received a massive threat from Texas in their second round game against a Villanova team that crushed/cruised/walked over a UCLA team that was expected to put up a fight. The Blue Devils remain the ACC’s best hope at redemption for this tournament (under the assumption that UNC already is a pretty strong favorite to make the Final Four). Duke will certainly be cheering on Xavier in the opening game as every media pundit, myself included, does not think that Duke will be able to contain the rebounding force that is Dejuan Blair. Villanova did beat Pittsburgh in their only matchup this season, as they were able to draw some early fouls on Blair and limit his minutes, but I’d still expect they would prefer not to have to win that battle again.


Last year’s Villanova team was a 12 seed and among one of the last at-large bids in the tournament. The largest boost to their play this year has been the incredible transformation of Dante Cunningham from active big who can rebound and play defense to a skilled post player who can be counted on to carry the scoring load in addition to his inside presence. The Jay Wright focus on heavy guard play is still there, but even with ones as gifted as the Foye/Ray/Lowry/Nardi group in 2006 a team still needs some form of post presence to make it through the NCAA tournament. With Curtis Sumpter’s untimely injury, that team had a combination of Sheridan/Fraser/Clark/Cunningham doing the dirty work inside, similar to last year’s Cunningham/Clark/Pena. In neither of those years did any of the bigs take 20% or more of the shots while on the floor and the trend continues with Pena and Clark this year. The big difference though has been Cunningham – his offense progression throughout his first four years are as follows:

That’s quite a jump, and while his shooting is ever so slightly down this year compared to last, when taking into account his massive increase in usage his numbers just pop out at you. Duke will try to contain him with Lance Thomas and Kyle Singler inside for the most part, and the most interesting battle to me will be who wins the battle of the talented team-leading forwards. Singler is a more balanced player and has the ability to hit threes at a high rate as well as pass and rebound well, but Cunningham has the athleticism and post moves to give Duke trouble on the inside. Not to belabor the point, but early foul trouble for these two key big men will be a significant hurdle to each team although Cunningham is still more important to his team. Beyond that, we should have a great matchup between NBA-ready Gerald Henderson and the slew of Villanova guards and swingmen that may not quite have the pro styled game but are still talented enough to make a deep tournament run. This game is considered to be the closest according to Vegas, and with plenty of scoring and action to boot. After tonight we should have a better idea whether that lofty 17 win goal for the Big East is attainable or not.