TCU: The Savior of Big East Basketball?

It's not a secret that the authors of this blog are from the Northeast, root for things that occur during Eastern Standard Time, and thoroughly enjoy college basketball. And given that we grew up during the era of Chris Mullin, Patrick Ewing, Billy Owens, and Rollie Massimino, we're naturally Big East basketball guys.

Which is why we're finding it a bit unbelievable that a conference where St. John's-Georgetown and Big Monday used to be the biggest things it had going...just added to its roster of schools Texas Christian University, located in the eastern locale of Fort Worth, Texas.

How the hell did we get from Pearl Washington and Dana Barros to Yogi Gallegos? Let's take a trip down memory lane and do a little tracing of the history of the membership of the Big East from the basketball perspective. We'll ignore Temple's brief period as a football whipping boy and the goofy association that the conference has with Loyola-Maryland, and instead focus on how the expansions and changes affected what was originally a pure basketball conference, but now seems to have morphed into an intercollegiate hydra.

1979: Conference is founded with the "Original Seven" teams: Boston College, Syracuse, Georgetown, St. John's, Seton Hall, Connecticut and Providence. This sets up a conference that takes its inspiration from the old Amtrak Metroliner corridor, with teams from NYC, Boston, DC, pit stops in Rhode Island and North Jersey along the way, with large schools in the hinterlands joining the equation. When the league started, Georgetown and Syracuse were top-10 schools in basketball, the Carrier Dome was getting built, and Lou Carnessecca was wearing ugly sweaters.

1980: The Metroliner theme picks up as the conference adds Villanova.

1982: Pittsburgh makes the Big East a nice 9-team conference, meaning 16 intraconference games every year. This kicks off 10 years of the conference's heyday, where six of the nine teams make at least one Final Four, UConn has one of the NCAA tournament's signature moments when Scotty Burrell and Tate George beat Clemson on a buzzer beater, and Jerome Lane attends Pitt for 9 straight years.

1991: The Big East creates a football conference, which has only one impact on the basketball league: the perennially crappy Miami Hurricanes now join the league. It takes the Canes about 2 years to win their first league game (over St. John's--I remember the game well because Constantin Popa was prominently featured), and until they get some real players in the late 90's, Miami is essentially the league's doormat. This is something of the wilderness years for the conference where they had no good teams until the late 90's, in large part because the conference institutes a "six foul" rule for conference play and makes the basketball completely unwatchable. In terms of expansion, while Miami isn't particularly close to any of the other 9 schools, it's still on the I-95 corridor, and seems somewhat logical if the conference wants a foothold in the South.

1995: Buoyed by the success of the football conference--and by success, we mean that it didn't close shop in 3 years--the league makes "football only" members West Virginia and Rutgers part of the conference, and allow Notre Dame to join for all sports except basketball. This creates a rather unwieldy 13-team basketball league where the round robin dies. It also means that the conference is now in a second time zone for Notre Dame, though with the exception of Notre Dame and Miami, none of the schools are really geographically awkward.

2001: Virginia Tech goes from football only to basketball also. This makes a goofy 14-team arrangement in two divisions, where two teams don't make the Big East Tournament. It's also another case (like Miami and Rutgers) of adding a basketball team that isn't any good. This arrangement holds up for 4 years until...

The Great Re-organization: In a failed bid to become a relevant football conference, the ACC raids the Big East for Miami, Virginia Tech and the somewhat unlikely Boston College bolt for the ACC. The Big East retaliates by grabbing every halfway decent basketball program that lacks a football program of consequence. Come on down Louisville! Step right up Cincinnati! Welcome to the conference Marquette! DePaul and South Florida....well, we need 16 teams!

What has ensued for the last 5 years is a "conference" where the teams are as closely connected as partners in a multinational law firm (that is, only tangentially) and only are guaranteed to "see" each other once a year at the Big East tournaments. The conference declines to make divisions, which would actually make sense and give the league some structure, and instead have the teams finish 1 through 16. With 15 possible opponents but an 18-game conference schedule, there's no guarantee that you'll play any given team in a given year, and the strength of schedule from team to team varies wildly. On top of that, we get a Big East Tournament every year where the bottom 8 seeds have to win five times in five days to win the damn thing. Shockingly, this hasn't happened.

So because of football, what started out as a tight basketball conference for the Metroliner corridor first evolved into a eastern regional league, which has now morphed into a Northeastern sports conglomerate with a bunch of crappy football teams. That at least was the case until yesterday when...

2010: The Big East announces that TCU will join the conference in 2012.

Now look, we all know of the expansion that we've discussed is college football driven. We will completely ignore the fact that until they added TCU, Big East football was about as relevant as MAAC golf: even when Cincinnati went undefeated last year, nobody took them seriously, and they were right not to do so, since Iowa blew their doors off in a bowl game.

But we're circling back to our original question: what does the TCU addition mean for men's basketball, i.e., the original purpose of the conference? Are they actually going to have seventeen teams compete in a "conference" where one school is closer to Phoenix than to Storrs?

We think no. We think the Big East is going to find a 10th football school--be it convincing Villanova to go D-1, or--more probably--getting Central Florida to join, and will bid good day to the non-football schools. Because while there's some money in college basketball, there's no money in the other sports, and the real money is in football.

So assuming Villanova doesn't jump to D-1, who's getting kicked out? Here's the list of schools that would have to find a new home. See if you can identify what these schools have in common:

• St. John's
• Seton Hall
• Georgetown
• Villanova
• DePaul
• Marquette
• Notre Dame
• Providence

Yes, besides all being schools with zero football tradition...they're all Catholic schools! Coincidence or not, this could lead to one of the more fortuitous and fun new conferences ever: the Catholic League! Group these schools together, add in two Northeast Catholic schools with rich alum bases--we suggest Holy Cross and Fordham--and you'd have 10 Catholic schools in a basketball conference that would actually be entertaining to watch. They could stage a nice 18-team round robin, and what would be an entertaining tournament. Because as we know, bigger is not better for college basketball conferences.

And if this happened, the fracture would leave behind a Big East conference that all of a sudden becomes a fun, compact basketball league:

• Cincinnati
• West Virginia
• UConn
• Syracuse
• Pitt
• Louisville
• Rutgers
  
• TCU
• South Florida
  
• Central Florida
  

In short, if the Big East actually does split in half from being too ungainly, we stand to get two really nice basketball conferences. The TCU addition to the Big East may be a huge boon for college basketball.

Cornell-Wisconsin: 1994 Redux?

Your humble Gazette authors, being Penn and Columbia alums, have a pretty straightforward ethos when it comes to the Ivy League in the NCAAs:

(1) Root for the smarty-pants to beat whatever Big Bad Wolf team they draw in the first round;

(2) Unless it's those Princeton Pricks.

As noted last year, the Ivy League had been going down in flames for a dozen years in the first round of the NCAAs...until yesterday's glorious victory by Cornell over Temple, where Cornell shot 56.3%, including 39.1% from behind the arc. Up next: the Wisconsin Badgers, who barely beat the Wofford Terriers in a defense-and-rebounding slugfest that's the hallmark of Wisconsin basketball.

Everyone not from the Cheese State is going to be rooting for Cornell, and Vegas is giving the Big Red some real respect: they're only a 4 point underdog. Still, we can't help but note that this setup is quite similar to the 1994 NCAA Tournament. Let's turn back the clock a little and look at what happened that year.

• The Ivy League's Pennsylvania Quakers finish an excellent 25-3 year by getting an 11-seed and drawing Danny Nee's Nebraska, led by Eric Piatkowski, in the first round. The Quakers shoot lights out, lead by future pros Matt Maloney and Jerome Allen each handing out ten assists and Barry Pierce scoring 25 on 11 for 15 shooting. Penn jumped out to a quick 15-4 lead, and never trailed, eventually winning 90-80. On that night, Penn could have beaten nearly anyone.

• In the next game at the Nassau Coliseum, third-seeded Florida Gators, led by Andrew DeClerq, Dan Cross and Da Meat Hook (Dametri Hill) take on James Madison. In one of the ugliest slugfests ever, the teams combine for fewer than 10 field goals in the first half and JMU leads 22-18 at halftime. About 2/3 of the Coliseum attendees promptly left, and missed a back-and-forth physical matchup, where Florida prevailed by 2.

• Flash forward to Saturday, and everyone in the Nassau Mausoleum is rooting for the Quakers. Alas, not to be: the Quakers can't hit 3's at the same rate, they can't grab a rebound against Florida's massive frontcourt, and are outplayed on the other end to the tune of a 70-58 loss. The game was always close, but never really in doubt.

We want to see the Quakers move on to play Kentucky, if only because John Wall versus the Ivies would be a hoot. But we wonder if we're in for another disappointment today, because it'll be tough for the Big Red to go inside on the Badgers and they may not shoot 56% again.

Anschluss Gowanus

EDIT 3/18--game assignment got switched to one people might actually read.
For those interested, I'll be live blogging the Xavier-Portland State Kansas-North Dakota State first-round NCAA matchup for Deadspin this Friday at 12:30 p.m., so anyone who plans to drink and watch the game within stumbling distance of a computer is heartily encouraged to check it out. Link to follow once the tech details get nailed down.

This is all a little ironic given that arguably the most popular thing we've ever written was a post mocking the entire concept of live blogs. But we here at the GRBG are nothing if not flexible. Anyway, it should be fun, given that all I know about Portland State is that I spent part of law school hooking up with one of their alumna, and I'm not sure how smoothly that tidbit can be worked into a live blog format.

LSU-Butler Live Blog

So, in advance of our live blog for Deadspin on Friday we decided to take a crack at live blogging Thursday's LSU-Butler game. If you like it, well, expect more of the same on Friday. If not, treat this as a dry run. Click the circle to begin.

NCAA Tournament Pre-Blog

There has been a proliferation of so-called "live blogs" of early-round NCAA tourney games over the past few years, as bloggers fill the content needs of work-bound office drones. These things started out at true blogs like Deadspin, but have since metastasized to sites as mainstream as the New York Times and Sportsline, the website of the network that broadcasts the games.

We admit to being slightly baffled by this phenomenon, partly because the Grey Lady is somehow involved, but mostly because every NCAA first round is exactly the same. They might feel different because your office pool picks do better or worse than usual, but both the substantive outcomes of the games and the coverage of those games are, taken as a whole, the same every year.

So, live-blogging is both slightly passe and not particularly useful. Since we here at the GRBG always keep our eyes on the future, we've decided to up the ante by pre-live-blogging the first session of this year's dance. This approach promises to provide information every bit as useful and timely as the live blogs, with the added bonus of giving everyone a way to waste time at work a day early. Without further adieu:

Noon: A montage of: (1) Rollie Massimino being hugged; (2) Jim Valvano trying and failing to find someone to hug; (3) Bryce Drew hitting a hook-and-lateral three; (4) some coach getting hugged from behind while kicking his legs in the air; and (5) last year's champions cutting down the nets leads into the pre-game show. During the show, Greg Gumbel mentions that this season's tournament is one of the most wide-open in years, and Clark Kellogg stares into the wrong camera while saying the words "shoot," "spurt," "length," and "inside" in quick succession without drawing an FCC fine.

12:30 p.m.: The first set of games (Xavier-Georgia, Portland State-Kansas, and Temple-Michigan State) tip off. Live bloggers note that there is only one good team, and probably zero good matchups, in this set. Gumbel demurs, calling the upcoming slate of games "intriguing."

12:40 p.m.: In an attempt to counteract Kansas's superior quickness, Portland State comes out in a base 2-3 zone, though one that incorporates matchup principles on pick-and-roll switches. Over the sound of ice cubes clinking in a glass of Tullamore Dew, Bill Raftery proclaims that Portland State has come out "inamanaman!"

1:05 p.m.: Xavier lead over Georgia is 8. Tally of announcer mentions of the tornado in Atlanta during the SEC tournament is 5.

1:20 p.m.: The first field goal is made in the Michigan State-Temple game.

1:30 p.m.: CBS cameraman comes through with a three-second upskirt shot of a Georgia cheerleader. New York Times live blogger for the Xavier-Georgia game writes a 350-word paean to said shot. Maureen Dowd asks for and receives equal space for a rebuttal in the op-ed section. Xavier lead over Georgia is 8.

1:35 p.m.: Portland State goes on an 8-0 run. Many adorably scruffy white dudes jump up and down on the Portland bench. Raftery notes that "Pesky Portland is hanging around!" He does not note that the score is still 39-23 Kansas.

1:43 p.m.: A steal and fastbreak dunk by Dionte Christmas gives Temple an 8-7 lead over the Spartans with 4:12 to go in the first half. The decibel level of Gus Johnson's call of the dunk causes the overhead scoreboard to begin swaying dangerously, necessitating a 13-minute break in play.

1:47 p.m.: All three games are simultaneously in commercial, with yet another iteration of a Chevy ad with the Mellancamp song being played. Blog commenters across the land note that Bill Simmons is openly weeping.

1:50 p.m.: Halftime, which consists entirely of plugs for the upcoming slate of games and CBS promotional ads which for some reason feature the cast of How I Met Your Mother passing around a basketball.

1:55 p.m.: Kansas comes out to start the second half on a 15-1 run, opening the lead to 61-30. During the PSU timeout, 2000 people note that Bill James has declared this lead 81% safe.

2:02 p.m.: Promo features Jim Nantz smugging on about "A tradition unlike any other.....the Masters, on CBS Sports."

2:10 p.m.: CBS cuts away from Kansas game and goes to Xavier-Georgia game. Xavier lead over Georgia is 8.

2:12 p.m.: Xavier scores 7 consecutive points to increase its lead to 15. CBS cuts away from Xavier game to Michigan State-Temple game. MSU leads 19-15 with five minutes to play.

2:13 p.m.: U.S. gross domestic product surges by 18%, as workers recoil in horror from computer screens giving the play-by-play of the MSU-Temple game and return to their duties. Game announcer Sean McDonough abandons all pretense of promoting the intrinsic excitement of the game, and instead shifts to a tone of broad sarcasm that culminates in his on-air reference to Jay Bilas as "almost certainly the guy who assaulted that stripper at Duke."

2:14 p.m.: Score bug notes that Xavier lead over Georgia is now 8.

2:20 p.m.: Ivy League-educated live blogger notes Temple coach Fran Dunphy used to coach at Penn. Indignant midwestern commenters note that MSU coach Tom Izzo used to coach at Northern Michigan, which probably educates its students every bit as well as those fancy east-coast schools, who anyhow wouldn't know a decent ACT score if it was beer-battered, deep fried, and served to them smothered in grilled onions. Further discussion on the subject is unedifying.

2:24 p.m.: The final buzzer sounds and Kansas is the first team in the second round, with a 96-61 win over Portland State, who dozens of single and attentive bloggers decide have surprisingly attractive cheerleaders. Despite Xavier-Georgia and Temple-MSU both being single digit games with under 5 minutes to go, CBS inexplicably jumps to the tip-off of Marquette-Kentucky, where Dick Enberg is waxing poetic about Patrick Patterson's roommate. Color analyst Bilas fails to inform Enberg that Patterson is out for the tournament with a broken foot.

2:25 p.m.: Every live blogger makes joke about Kansas' victory having busted his bracket.

2:30 p.m.: Thirty-one second-half fouls later, Xavier beats Georgia by 8. CBS cuts back to the studio, where Seth Davis lambastes the existence of conference tournaments and their socialist automatic bids and openly weeps about Illinois State's exclusion from the tourney. Gumbel hastily throws it to commercial, where Pizza Hut is selling yet another fake-cheese laden product to fatten up the western world.

2:37 p.m.: Temple falls to Michigan State 28-26, prompting coaches everywhere to praise the tenacity of the Big Ten and the rest of the world to cringe at the thought of the upcoming Wisconsin game. Meanwhile, Enberg appears to be under the impression that Adolf Rupp is still the coach at Kentucky, while Bilas blatantly ignores him and prattles on about the virtues of the 1-3-1 zone trap.

3:00 p.m.: Back to the studio for the first wrap-up of the day. Kellogg attributes Kansas' win to having "better ath-eh-leets". Gumbel calls the upcoming slate of games "intriguing."

Enjoy the dance everybody, and may all your brackets survive day 1.

Incest is Best

I'm glad Deadspin already covered this---the hug that Joakim Noah gave his mother for about 40 minutes last night frightened the shit out of me and rose to the Angelina & her brother level of creepiness. Frankly, I think the guy in the goggles/glasses to the right is making the perfect expression of disbelief and disgust. I'm ashamed to have been even remotely rooting for them at any time. And I'm glad the snoozer of a Tourney is over---when does the Masters start?