Buckeyes still rolling...has it been years since Michigan beat us in football or basketball??
Right now, Im hoping Cleveland State takes it to Butler.
Buckeyes still rolling...has it been years since Michigan beat us in football or basketball??
Right now, Im hoping Cleveland State takes it to Butler.
Toochski, what's your excuse for ohio st's loss today? Please don't try telling me that the big 10 is competitive.
they didnt get the ball to Sullinger down the stretch. And Wisconsin couldnt miss from deep in the second half.
the big east has 2 teams....Uconn and Syracuse.....and dont even try to put Pitt in that category....they rack up good numbers against shit competition than get destroyed by elite programs and in the tourney.
That's 2 more teams than the big 10 has. By the way toochski, pitt beat both of those teams this season.
Bruising Big East
By Jason King
PHILADELPHIA – They’re the top team in college basketball’s toughest conference.
So Saturday – after Pittsburgh defeated Villanova 57-54 – it was only natural to ask the Panthers if they should catapult into the No. 1 spot in the next Associated Press poll. Ohio State will likely surrender the position following its loss to Wisconsin.
“I think we should be mentioned,” forward Nasir Robinson said. “But we want to be the elite team when all is said and done. A Final Four and a national championship … we want to make it that far.”
Six years have passed since a Big East squad advanced to the national title game. In a few more months, that streak will likely extend to seven. Impressive as they may look now, not one of the 10 – or maybe even 11 – conference schools who will receive well-earned NCAA tournament bids will win the title.
That’s not a knock on the Big East.
It’s actually just the opposite.
“We’re beating each other up,” Pittsburgh’s Gilbert Brown said. “There are so many days when you wake up and you’re body is aching. You’ve got to find a way to keep going.”
More than any team, Pittsburgh has found a way to persevere in the nation’s deepest, most competitive conference. The Panthers sit atop the league standings with an 11-1 record, including a 6-0 mark on the road.
The Panthers will no doubt feel an overwhelming sense of satisfaction if they continue this pace and capture conference championship outright. A Big East regular-season trophy may not be as impressive as an NCAA championship.
But it’s close.
Or at least it should be.
“Look at all the teams in our league with rankings next to their names,” Panthers coach Jamie Dixon said. “Here, you’re facing the type of opponents that no one else is going to face any time during the year. Even in the NCAA tournament, you’re not going to face this many ranked teams.
“Our regular season is as tough as there is in America.”
And that’s the problem.
Eventually the mental and physical beatings it suffers each night will catch up with Pittsburgh the same way they have with other elite Big East squads of the past. Some teams wear down at the end of the conference season or in the league tournament at Madison Square Garden.
Other schools hit the wall during March Madness.
In 2009 the Big East was awarded three of the NCAA tournament’s four No. 1 seeds, but only one of them (Connecticut) reached the Final Four. Only two of the eight schools that received bids in 2010 were around for the second weekend.
Connecticut’s NCAA title in 2004 marks the last time a Big East school played in the championship game. Heck, only four schools since that year have even advanced to the Final Four.
Dixon pointed to a number of potential reasons for the league’s postseason struggles.
Because the Big East is so deep, it’s difficult to build a gaudy win-loss record, so teams are often given seeds lower than they deserve. Also, because so many schools receive bids, Dixon said it’s tough for the committee to place them all at opening-round sites that are near their campus, which often puts teams at a disadvantage that other good programs don’t face.
Mostly, though, players feel like they’ve been through a meat grinder by the end of the Big East tournament. Once March Madness begins, there simply isn’t much left in the tank.
“It can happen,” Dixon said. “You want everyone to stay healthy so that everyone has their best team at the end of the year when everyone gets together [for the tournament], but sometimes that occurs.”
The strain of the Big East season is already beginning to catch up with some teams, many of which look great one night before floundering the next.
St. John’s, for instance, pulled off one of the most shocking wins of the season by defeating Duke at Madison Square Garden two weeks ago. But then the Red Storm eked out a two-point win against Rutgers before losing to UCLA.
Syracuse opened the season with 18 straight wins but has now lost six of its last eight. Marquette, a perennial NCAA tournament team, almost fell to South Florida Saturday before holding on for a one-point win.
Once ranked fifth in the country, Connecticut has dropped three of its last four games mainly because national player of the year candidate Kemba Walker – actually, make that former national player of the year candidate Kemba Walker – is mired in a terrible shooting slump. Clearly out of gas, Walker made just four of his 16 field goal attempts in an 89-72 loss to St. John’s on Thursday.
“It’s tough, but you’ve got to be mentally focused,” Robinson said. “You have to come out and execute and play smart each and every game. There are going to be some bumps and bruises and some punches. You just have to get your rest and take care of your body.”
All players have played through pain, and there isn’t a coach in the country that hasn’t spewed the “every conference game is a dogfight” cliche at some point in his career.
But in the Big East it actually holds true.
Unless it involves rebuilding DePaul, every league game is a physical and mental beating that leaves its participants drained. It’s simply not like that in other conferences.
Kansas, for instance, faces Texas once a year. But the Jayhawks also play a pair games against a Colorado squad it has defeated 43 of the last 44 times. Last week Kansas notched its 17th straight win against Nebraska before beating Iowa State for the 19th time in 21 meetings on Saturday.
In the Big East there are no easy games.
Pittsburgh leads the conference with an 11-1 record, but seven of its games have been decided by single digits. Meanwhile, when Big 12 leader Texas defeated Baylor 69-60 on Saturday, it marked the first time all season that the Longhorns failed to defeat a league foe by double figures.
“In the Big East,” Brown said, “a regular-season title has a lot of value.”
Even if the team that wins it comes up short in the postseason.
With strong senior leadership and some of the best depth and athleticism in the country, Pittsburgh hopes it can reverse that trend this spring. The Panthers know winning the NCAA title will be difficult.
But then again, so is winning the Big East.
“It would be a great accomplishment,” Brown said. “To maintain our success and pull out win after win in this league and separate ourselves … it’s something we’d be proud of. Very proud.”
riiiight....keep tryin
Following Ohio State's first loss, who should be the new No. 1?
No. 4 Pitt (23-2 overall, 11-1 Big East, RPI: 6)
Pitt kept itself alive in this discussion by grinding out the day's most impressive road win, prevailing 57-54 at No. 9 Villanova. They snapped Nova's 46-game win streak at The Pavilion that dated back to Jan. 17, 2007.
Of the three teams waiting in the wings, Pitt is the least likely to win a beauty contest, but the Panthers just keep getting it done. While Kansas and Texas are feasting on league foes in a down year for the Big 12, Pitt has an 11-1 record in America's deepest conference, which is just ridiculous.
What makes it even more impressive is that, this week, Pitt won road games at West Virginia and at Villanova without arguably its best player — junior guard Ashton Gibbs.
And don't forget the Panthers also own a 68-66 neutral-court win over Texas in the title game of the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic way back on Nov. 18.
But is that enough to push them past two teams?
If you're going by the 'What have you done for me lately?' method, Pitt should be the new No. 1. If you take the 'Look at the entire body of work' approach, Kansas gets the nod.
I prefer the former, but won't be surprised at all when the Jayhawks are unveiled as the new top-ranked club on Monday.
It's still up for debate.
OSU should still be 1
BYU's Jimmer Fredette is the player of the year.
OSU has only beaten 2 current top #25 teams. how can you even have them in the top 10? they barely beat penn st. and northwestern.Originally Posted by Mic Tyson
pitt has beaten 6 top #25 teams including the #3 team.
who cares, this will all ge settled in teh tourney
Haha it's hard to argue against that logic... by saying those two teams are the only two that matter, you fucked yourself and proved Art right... but you're right, the tournament is what it comes down to. However, it sounds like Art has a one-up on you till then
Ohio State is 24-0 and lost a road game at a place where the home team has won something like 36 straight.
Again....its a meaningless game....we are in the tourney and will be a high seed, probably a 1 seed, so until then, any shit talking is irrelevent.
Yeah I'm not shit talking, it's just that if we can't talk about regular season games, then what the fuck do we do till the victor is crowned? Haha
thats fine...im just saying...as of now, OHio State should be 1 if we are going to argue it because their only loss was to a ranked team in one of the toughest places to play, only by 4, and they were up by like 12 and in control most of the game.
Kansas has proven they are not the top team....Texas has 3 losses.
But again.....Duke, even with recent losses, is still a team to beat.
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