Heading into the men’s NCAA Tournament, the Big East was seen as the top conference in the country with perennial Top 25 teams and numerous high seeds. But after the first two rounds of the tournament, what does the conference have to show for it? Humiliating losses for Georgetown and Villanova, plus early exits for Louisville, Marquette, and Pittsburgh.
People are staring at their brackets in disbelief.
Why are these top teams, the top teams for most of the year, losing, while teams like Northern Iowa and Cornell, teams that flew under the radar for most of the season, are sitting in the Sweet Sixteen?
What it boils down to is not the fact that the Big East is not what we thought it was, but the fact that the league is almost too good for its own good. It cannibalizes itself through the long regular season and arduous conference tournament at Madison Square Garden leaving teams as shells of their former selves by the time Selection Sunday rolls around.
Georgetown and Villanova are perfect examples of this. Georgetown fluctuated in the rankings, struggling mightily at times during the year, but showed great potential with wins over Duke and Villanova before getting hot in the Big East Tournament and advancing to the title game where the Hoyas lost to West Virginia. Then Georgetown got throttled by the Ohio Bobcats, a No. 14 seed, in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Villanova faltered down the stretch of the regular season before going one-and-done in the Big East Tournament. Then the Wildcats barely beat No. 15 seed Robert Morris before getting bounced by No. 10 seed St. Mary’s in the second round.
Both of these teams were arguably two of the best teams in the nation with some of the best players in the nation, including Villanova’s Scottie Reynolds and Georgetown’s Greg Monroe. But the wear and tear of top-tier competition week after week took its toll and relegated them to nonfactors in the Big Dance.
This shows a shift in power come tournament time to some of the weaker major conferences and the mid-major conferences that don’t have to play the same level of competition as the Big East throughout the regular season. The Big Ten has three teams in the Sweet Sixteen, while the Big East, SEC, and Big XII all have two teams represented. There are a total of 11 conferences represented in the final 16 teams, an extraordinary amount of parity.
So, next time you go put your bracket together, consider the mid-majors. The Big East might have the attractive picks, but those teams are tired and worn out by the time mid-March rolls around.
Daniel Gallen can be reached for comment at [email protected].