The Big East is awful this year.

Question

I was looking at conference standings, just kind of idly calculating who would make the NCAA's, and was shocked to see that South Florida is 10-4 in the Big East. Yes, South Florida has had about as easy of a Big East schedule as you could ever get, and very possibly might drop their next 4 as their schedule toughens, but still...South Florida is a terrible team, and they have 10 wins in conference.

Some of USF's non-conference results (lot of similar teams to UK, because they were in the same preseason tourney that UK played):

Lost to Old Dominion
Lost to Penn State
Lost to VCU by 23
Lost to Kansas by 28
Lost to Auburn, 52-40
Lost to Southern Miss

In the Big East, they've feasted on the bottom feeders, and lost to the good teams they've played. Their only really good win is against Seton Hall. But it speaks volumes about your conference when your bottom feeders are so weak that a team like USF, which lost to every semi-decent team it played OOC, and has been blasted by 20 or more 4 times this year, can get to 10 wins.

Notre Dame is similar, BTW, although clearly a better team than USF. ND is now 11-3 in the Big East. The same Notre Dame that lost to Mizzou by 29, to Georgia on a neutral court, to Gonzaga by 20, and to Maryland.

All of this is why I still think that Syracuse is highly suspect. I think they're a very good but not great team thriving in one of the weakest years the Big East has ever had. I think it's distinctly possible that Syracuse gets run out of the NCAA's before the Elite 8. Whoever they play in the Sweet 16 very well might end up being the toughest competition they've faced all year.

Originally posted on Rupp Rafters by mj2k10.

Answer 1

5 of the 16 teams have below .500 records. so right off that bat the "top to bottom" argument that ul fans love to make is blown out of the water.

teams like south florida, cinncy, seton hall, wvu, uconn, pitt, and ND are very average teams. most dont have talent and the ones that do (uconn) has major issues.

Originally posted on Rupp Rafters by BostonCat2001.