Bubble Watch: Everyone is Out

No, his name is Hevin Darris, he just became eligible

All anyone wants to talk about today is Terrell Owens, Alex Rodriguez and who is on the bubble for the NCAA tournament.  A quick look at the Bootlegger Sports front page reveals, we’ve already talked about two of the three, so why not go for the clean sweep.  This may be a recurring segment over the next week.  Then again, I may get bored halfway through this post and fly to Brazil, never to be seen again.  This blog is full of surprises. 

Providence-  has a win over Pittsburgh and all the terrible teams in their conference.  They have a chance to beat Villanova tonight, that would put them in.  If they can’t do that, they’ll need to win some at the Big East tournament, which I understand is 10 rounds long, so there should be ample opportunities. 

Boston College- They are sporting wins over UNC and Duke.  They’re not just in, they’re heroes in my book.  Sure, their resume isn’t spectacular, but every other bubble team is rooting for them.  Why?  So they can meet in the 8-9 game. 

Wisconsin- Just being associated with the Big Ten and not being Michigan State or Purdue should blackball you from the tourney, but if this team was from the Big East, they’d be a lock.  As it is, they just finished being swept by fellow bubblers Minnesota and their final game is against Indiana.  Just playing the Hoosiers should disqualifies you from the Big Dance, so the Badgers are against the wall.

Texas A&M- Oh boy, we’re scraping the bottom of the barrell now.  Their recent loss against Colorado proves about as much as Rick Majerus’ recent victory over starvation, so they’ll have to beat Missouri to even sniff the dance.  Unfortunately for the Aggies, the Big 12 is filled with mediocre bubble teams and has no representative on the selection committee.  Get those maroon and white muffin baskets ready booster club.

South Carolina- How terrible is SEC basketball?  A division winner might not make the tournament.  The Gamecocks have ZERO wins against the top 50 and losses to numerous non-tournament teams.  There has to be some unspoken rule to ensure ‘power conferences’ get more than 2 teams to the madness though right?  Turns out, there is a rule like that.  It reads: “beat a quality team”.  Actually, SC has to make the tourney so a careless CBS announcer can make an unfortunate reference to their nickname.

Tags: basketball, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Boston College, Colorado, Duke, Indiana, Michigan State, Minnesota, Missouri, NCAA, NCAA Tournament, Pittsburgh, Providence, Purdue, SEC, South Carolina, Texas A&M, UNC, Wisconsin

The Big East is Egotistical

The Big East REALLY loves itself

The Big East Conference’s ego has become so inflated lately, it’s applied for statehood.  If accepted, it would become the 5th largest in the union.  Why is Big East basketball so proud of itself?  It has as many as 4 top ten teams in one poll.  But the ACC has 4 top 11 teams in another poll.  But in my poll, neither league has any teams in the top 25 and Marisa Miller and I own the top spot for the 32nd consecutive week.   

West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins apparently doesn’t read my poll because he says the Big East is “maybe the best conference in history”.  Maybe.  Maybe Paris Hilton is the greatest mind of our time.  Maybe Bootlegger Sports is witty, irreverent and influential.  Maybe.

In reality, the Big East is a gigantic conference with a few good teams.  Georgetown and Notre Dame have been disappointing while Marquette has had a hot start.  They will probably put 7 or 8 teams in the big dance.  That’s only half their league. 

The ACC, Big 12, Big 10 and SEC regularly put half their league into the NCAA tournament.  Surely there must be some other reason for the Big East’s inflated sense of self. 

Louisville’s Terrance Williams has some insight.  “Our last place team… could win the ACC.  We’re the toughest conference.” 

When did the Big East get tough?  Georgetown has always been tough, but Luke Harangody bullied his way to All-American status last season thanks to the cast of “Rent” type opposition.  Rick Pitino doesn’t coach toughness, he coaches “shoot the J”. 

Before you Big East fans get all pissy, I’ll admit that the games I’ve watched have been decently physical, but you can’t honestly think you’re any tougher than the rest of college basketball. 

We’ll find out in March who the best conference is.  Let me know when the tournament starts, I’ll be working on my poll.

Quotes courtesy The Sporting News via Yahoo Sports.

Tags: ACC, basketball, Big East, Bob Huggins, Georgetown, Louisville, Luke Harangody, Marisa Miller, Marquette, NCAA, Notre Dame, Terrance Williams, West Virginia

St. John’s Basketball Loves Mediocrity

Does this picture belong on a Wheaties box or what?

It’s easy to forget about the St. John’s basketball team considering they are one of roughly 22 other teams competing in the Big East.  Also, they pretty much suck and have for quite a while.  It’s astonishing really, considering some of the great players who have played and won there, and that they can use Madison Square Garden as a recruiting tool.  Now, though, breaking news has shed some light on the Red Storm’s perennial failures.  They’re afraid of success. 

St. John’s will likely finish at or below .500 this season, just like every season head coach Norm Roberts has held the reigns, yet players are willing to leave the program if their coach doesn’t return.  This sounds like some Stockholm syndrome type stuff. 

How is Coach Roberts not a better recruiter if he can convince 15 20-year old kids that not going to the NCAA’s is something you can build loyalty around.  I guess that’s why people think he has a chance to land one of the biggest recruits in the country next year.  That and the fact that he clearly has some Kelvin Sampson type drug lounge set up for the players.

How exactly does players threatening to quit the team if the coach get fired strike fear into the administration, anyway?  The coach hasn’t won, he gets fired.  That means the players haven’t won either.  Don’t you think St. John’s would like to get rid of some of these guys and replace them with players who actually want to win?  If Roberts can hold on for a couple more years, Red Storm alum Ron Artest may be ready to start coaching.  Now that would be a coach worth fighting for.

Tags: basketball, Big East, Kelvin Sampson, NCAA, Norm Roberts, Ron Artest, St. John's

Mountain West Is Not Legit, Should Quit

Even the fans aren't BCS caliber

I knew rooting for Utah would come back to bite me in the ass.  Now those uppity Mormons and their conference mates think they deserve an automatic bid to the BCS. 

I’ll admit they might deserve an auto-bid more than the Big East if for no other reason than they have one extra team.  Come on Big East, 8 team leagues went out with slap bracelets.  Tell Notre Dame to play football in your conference or fuck off… actually tell them to fuck off either way. 

The Mountain West clearly deserves a bid for their 61-47 overall record as a conference this season.  But wait, the Big East had a 57-40 record with one less team.  So if you added a 5-7 team to the Big East, like say Middle Tennessee State, it would actually be a better conference than the MWC. 

But wait, you might say, those records are pretty arbitrary and can’t be compared like that.  And that’s just one year.  True, I might say, arbitrary like the one year the MWC is using as proof they deserve an automatic BCS bid. 

TCU, Utah and BYU have been damn good the past few years.  But BYU didn’t have a winning record between 2002 and 2005 and even Utah and TCU have put up sub-par seasons in the last 6.  So essentially, it’s been a league with one quality team per year until 2008.  In fact, the MWC champs have had an overall record at least 2 games better than the next best team every year since 2002, except 2006.  In fact, that second place team has had at least 5 losses 4 out of the last 7 seasons.  That would be the equivalent of Ohio State going 12-1 and Michigan finishing second in the Big 10 at 7-5.  Don’t you think people would be a little irked if this happened more times than it didn’t?

In the current Big East alignment, that has never happened and I’d still like to see that conference lose their automatic berth.  Mostly because those couch burning hillbilly’s in West Virginia make me nervous, but also because the conference is little, plays no championship game and is questionable at best in overall talent. 

The point is, how can you be qualified to play in the BCS when you play a conference full of cupcakes.  USC has to deal with that every year, but they’ve proven their worth.  Nobody can secretly cheat like that for so long and not be amazing.

Why are you so enamored with an auto-bid anyway MWC?  Has one of your deserving teams finished in the top 10 and not gotten a BCS bid?  Right, you’re going to tell me TCU deserved a BCS spot this year.  You think you would have gotten one if Utah had claimed the conferences bid, even though you were ranked behind other at large Boise State in every pole?  If so, it’s no wonder you’re the purple frogs because you’re tokin’ on some serious shit. 

So MWC, stop your bitching.  You’re not getting an auto-bid and no one likes you.  You’re like the bitch who loudly complains in a line outside the club.  If you’re deserving, you’ll make it in, but no part of you deserves to get in right away.  But if you’re stupid pleas for acceptance get us closer to a playoff, then you should yell louder.

Tags: BCS, Big East, Big Ten, BYU, football, Michigan, Middle Tennessee State, MWC, NCAA, Notre Dame, Ohio State, TCU, Utah, West Virginia