MBB: Seton Hall 65, Georgetown 60

[NYC Duke Fan]

Although I expect to see them in the tornament, maybe Georgetown is just not that good. If they somehow fail to make the tournament, I wonder whether Greg Monroe has second thoughts .

[jimmymax]

Yea, signature wins (Purdue, Xavier, G'town) no longer quite so impressive...

Will be interested how we fare against a good offensive team.

[moonpie23]

hoyas fans are blaming their entire season's collapse on DUke...

http://hoyatalk2.proboards48.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=18466

[mapei]

hoyas fans are blaming their entire season's collapse on DUke...

http://hoyatalk2.proboards48.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=18466

Well, last time I looked only one poster agreed with the guy who said that, and about five told him to shut up.

That said, the Hoyas have indeed imploded since the Duke game, for whatever reason. The last two games have been embarrassingly bad. WVU at least is a decent, if not elite, team. Seton Hall tried hard to lose today and couldn't, because Georgetown was so bad. Not Maryland bad, mind you, but still very bad.

Before that game, I watched part of Louisville-Syracuse. Louisville looked *really* good.

[91devil]

I think it is Saluki hangover.

[geraldsneighbor]

Well, last time I looked only one poster agreed with the guy who said that, and about five told him to shut up.

That said, the Hoyas have indeed imploded since the Duke game, for whatever reason. The last two games have been embarrassingly bad. WVU at least is a decent, if not elite, team. Seton Hall tried hard to lose today and couldn't, because Georgetown was so bad. Not Maryland bad, mind you, but still very bad.

Before that game, I watched part of Louisville-Syracuse. Louisville looked *really* good.

Louisville was my pre-season pick to win it all, because I wasn't aloud to take the boys from Durham. They are starting round in to form. They match our guard play and have an impressive front-court.

[Jumbo]

Louisville was my pre-season pick to win it all, because I wasn't aloud to take the boys from Durham. They are starting round in to form. They match our guard play and have an impressive front-court.

They have a very impressive frontcourt, but they don't match our guard play (or that of several other teams). Point guard, in particular, is a real weakness for Louisville.

[ChicagoCrazy84]

I agree Georgetown is not very good. They just do not have good guard play. Sapp and Summers are ok, but they don't shoot the ball well. They go 3-23 today, ugly!
I totally disagree with jimmymax who said Duke's quality wins aren't looking as good. Xavier is playing good ball right now and had a GREAT win at LSU this past Saturday. Purdue is playing pretty good ball as well. They aren't going anywhere. GU might not be as good, but who cares? We got the job done, we can't worry about what other teams are doing or not doing.

[Mudge]

Although I expect to see them in the tornament, maybe Georgetown is just not that good. If they somehow fail to make the tournament, I wonder whether Greg Monroe has second thoughts .

Yeah, and maybe now DBR's owners will stop with the nonsense that there are no good teams at the bottom of the Big East-- as though that league was somehow differentiated from the ACC, in having only decent teams at the top, and no bottom-- Georgia Tech and Virginia are no better than Seton Hall and Providence, nor more likely to beat the top teams in the ACC than Seton Hall is to beat the top teams in the Big East... and if Duke's win over Georgetown at home was a good win, then so was Seton Hall's.

I think DBR has had a silly, flawed contention about the Big East this year, from the beginning, and it only highlights their myopic, North Carolina/ACC-centric view of the world. The ACC's bad teams are every bit as bad as the Big East's bad teams, and the argument about getting more teams into the NCAA the last few years has been flawed too-- neither FSU, Maryland, nor VPI deserved it either year, because they couldn't beat the mediocre teams they were supposed to beat, out-of-conference, when they should have been building their case... even DBR recognized that, and yet they still pushed for the ACC to get more teams in.

As a side note, the DBR has also been dead wrong about Leonard Hamilton for just about ever (he has been a winner, and built programs pretty much everywhere he was given a chance-- e.g.- more than part of one season), and I fail to understand why the DBR has constantly criticized and denigrated his achievements, when they were so willing to give Steve Robinson every benefit of the doubt, when Robinson took a program that was a perennial winner and a regular tournament team from Pat Kennedy (another guy who DBR unfairly denigrates), and turned it into a loser-- Robinson never did anything at FSU, and all DBR could do was lament his passing, when his long-overdue firing finally came down... would that Robinson could have done half of what Hamilton or Kennedy did at FSU.

[DukeVol]

Jeez, tell us what you really think....

I personally think it is easier for a below-average team to beat an IN-conference opponent. Why? Well, they play every year and can develop and test game plans until they get it right. Also, the intimidation factor just is not there with an IN-conference opponent.

What does Seton Hall's OOC record show us?

[Wander]

Yeah, and maybe now DBR's owners will stop with the nonsense that there are no good teams at the bottom of the Big East-- as though that league was somehow differentiated from the ACC, in having only decent teams at the top, and no bottom-- Georgia Tech and Virginia are no better than Seton Hall and Providence, nor more likely to beat the top teams in the ACC than Seton Hall is to beat the top teams in the Big East... and if Duke's win over Georgetown at home was a good win, then so was Seton Hall's.


It is annoying that people here spew garbage about the Big East just because Duke isn't in the Big East and I appreciate someone else seeing that, but it is true that the ACC's bottom is better than the Big East's bottom. Have you seen Depaul and Rutgers play? (and I'm saying that as someone who thinks the Big East is the best conference)



As a side note, the DBR has also been dead wrong about Leonard Hamilton for just about ever (he has been a winner, and built programs pretty much everywhere he was given a chance-- e.g.- more than part of one season),

I'm not sure what you're talking about here. He's an awful coach. He took the #1 recruiting class to ZERO tournament appearances - that's not just bad, that's historic. He has the talent of a Top 25 team now, but do you see FSU anywhere near the Top 25?

[Deslok]

Just to put some numbers into the Big East/ACC comparison... if you take the bottom half of both conferences(bottom 8 from the Big East, bottom 6 from the ACC, an arbitrary but seemingly fair choice for the poorer teams in each conference). For the ACC that's Ga Tech, Virginia, NC State, BC, Va Tech, and Maryland. For the Big East, that's DePaul, St. Johns, Rutgers, South Florida, Seton Hall, Cincy, Providence, and Notre Dame(!). To use two different metrics, Sagarin and Pomeroy ratings. If you put the teams in ranked order, it almost alternates at the top, but the bottom 4 in Sagarin, and the bottom 3 in Pomeroy are all in the Big East(and the margins aren't close, the worst ACC team, Ga Tech, is rated 102/97 by the ratings while the worst Big East, DePaul is 167/157). Now to be fair, Notre Dame is pretty clearly ahead of the pack at the top, ahead by 22 in Pomeroy and 24 in Sagarin from 2nd place Maryland. So how about the average rating of both sets. In the ACC, the average Pomeroy rating is 85.8 and the average Sagarin is 82. For the Big East, the average Pomeroy is 105.3 and the average Sagarin is 102. How much worse is that? well, for some perspective, that means the average team in the bottom half of the Big East is worse than any team in the ACC(Georgia Tech being 102 and 97 by the respective ratings).

To make a long story short, yes, the bottom half of the Big East is that bad. Seton Hall had a fabulous win, and a miraculous one after starting off 0-6 in conference play, add in a home loss to IUPUI and there's just no way to claim they are a good team, Va Tech's loss to them is pretty damning for any tourney aspirations they had).

And yes, the top of the Big East is very good, but the conference as a whole is not the best one around, by any rating system used. They don't even make it to 2nd(the Big 10 wins that slot, if you haven't looked).

[mapei]

Personally, I find the whole "my conference is better than yours" thing pretty stupid, whether it is BE fans putting down the ACC (and they do) or Duke fans putting down the BE, sometimes going through all sorts of logical machinations to back the argument up. Who the heck cares? They are both pretty good. Just play the games and win.

[DukieBoy]

IMO, and it is a biased one, the Big East is overrated. When voters in the polls began voting, all anyone heard about was how great the Big East was going to be. As a result, they voted Big East teams higher. Now top teams are starting to rise to the top and the others are sinking. However, in all fairness, the Big East is still tough. Imagine the type of competition they go through. Seton Hall might be one of the most under rated teams in the nation because they started off their Big East schedule against five ranked teams before finally pulling one off. Teams, however, battle night in and night out against top 25 teams. On Sportscenter, Bob Knight was talking about how teams in the Big East can avoid burnout, which is something no one has brought up before.

[CzyzIsMyHero]

i hate when this stuff happens, now people make it like dukes win was no big deal

[mapei]

I would love to see, say, UNC vs. Pitt or Wake vs. Louisville, Clemson vs. UConn or Va Tech vs. ND or Marquette. Those would all be awesome games.

[greybeard]

I think it possible that Georgetown will tweak things a bit and get the ball to Monroe low more often with the intention that he score the ball as his primary option. If so, I think he will, and will increase his scoring average. If that happens, their entire offense might improve.

There might be an obstacle to going this route. Why do I say this? Why haven't they tried it?

[Mudge]

I'm not sure what you're talking about here. He's an awful coach. He took the #1 recruiting class to ZERO tournament appearances - that's not just bad, that's historic. He has the talent of a Top 25 team now, but do you see FSU anywhere near the Top 25?

I assume you are talking about Hamilton at FSU-- I don't recall him ever having the #1 recruiting class- but any top recruits he did have at FSU, have not stayed for the full 4 years, so it is tough to produce with that (ask Paul Hewitt)-- anyway, you probably saw that FSU gave UNC-CH all they wanted the other night, and if the rankings in the DBR ACC roundup posting are correct, FSU was in the top 25, on the basis of computer rankings, with one ranking of 18 (before the UNC-CH loss). Hamilton built winners (and tournament teams) at OSU and Miami (which had no tradition at all, until Hamilton came).

[Mudge]

Just to put some numbers into the Big East/ACC comparison... if you take the bottom half of both conferences(bottom 8 from the Big East, bottom 6 from the ACC, an arbitrary but seemingly fair choice for the poorer teams in each conference). For the ACC that's Ga Tech, Virginia, NC State, BC, Va Tech, and Maryland. For the Big East, that's DePaul, St. Johns, Rutgers, South Florida, Seton Hall, Cincy, Providence, and Notre Dame(!). To use two different metrics, Sagarin and Pomeroy ratings. If you put the teams in ranked order, it almost alternates at the top, but the bottom 4 in Sagarin, and the bottom 3 in Pomeroy are all in the Big East(and the margins aren't close, the worst ACC team, Ga Tech, is rated 102/97 by the ratings while the worst Big East, DePaul is 167/157). Now to be fair, Notre Dame is pretty clearly ahead of the pack at the top, ahead by 22 in Pomeroy and 24 in Sagarin from 2nd place Maryland. So how about the average rating of both sets. In the ACC, the average Pomeroy rating is 85.8 and the average Sagarin is 82. For the Big East, the average Pomeroy is 105.3 and the average Sagarin is 102. How much worse is that? well, for some perspective, that means the average team in the bottom half of the Big East is worse than any team in the ACC(Georgia Tech being 102 and 97 by the respective ratings).

To make a long story short, yes, the bottom half of the Big East is that bad. Seton Hall had a fabulous win, and a miraculous one after starting off 0-6 in conference play, add in a home loss to IUPUI and there's just no way to claim they are a good team, Va Tech's loss to them is pretty damning for any tourney aspirations they had).

And yes, the top of the Big East is very good, but the conference as a whole is not the best one around, by any rating system used. They don't even make it to 2nd(the Big 10 wins that slot, if you haven't looked).

Deslok, you make a lot of good points, and you have done a lot of nice analysis, using a lot of data-based inferences... one thing I do wonder about is how you put VPI in the bottom half of the ACC, as they are tied for first or second right now, and were never bottom this season, and BC, while perhaps bottom half on league record, probably deserve better, based on overall record.

Also, since you posted, Cincy and (I think) Providence have both posted nice league wins against the upper half of the Big East, which again, gainsays DBR's contention that the Big East is filled with nothing but pushover wins for the upper teams against the bottom teams-- Georgetown is finding out otherwise, and Cincy now has a .500 record in the league, based on their win against Georgetown, which can't be any less meaningful than Duke's win at Cameron over Georgetown.

I'd say more teams in the Big East are in tourney contention than DBR gives credit to, in their latest screed against the Big East-- shocking to find out that a lot of Big East teams that are supposed to be pretty good (would you like to go play ND or Georgetown on their home floors tomorrow) are struggling in the league.

P.S.-- I don't know what kind of team IUPUI has, but if they have any of the skills and fundamentals of Butler, and Evansville, then maybe they're not such a bad representative of mid-major Indiana basketball (perhaps a better rep than IU this year!), and thus perhaps not such a bad loss for Providence.

[Deslok]

I went strictly by the computer rankings of the teams to determine top half/bottom half of the conference. Since that was the basis of the comparison, I figured that was the fairest way to mark the differential, especially with conference seasons having a long way to go, being first in a conference isn't necessarily something that is expected to last long.

As far as the analysis, I don't think its an understatement to say the Big East lower teams are really bad, but I didn't address the top half of the Big East, which via the computer rankings makes up 8 of the top 25 teams(and you can't accuse the computers of east coast bias). So they do have a very strong top half, but their bottom half is that bad. With conference rivalries and familiarity, odd results can and will happen, but that doesn't make Seton Hall, St John, etc good teams. If you broke the conferences down into quartiles, the first and third quartiles would be roughly even between the ACC and Big East(slight edge to the ACC at the top), in the 2nd quartile the Big East would crush the ACC and any other conference, but in the 4th the opposite would happen. I do think the ACC is better, but its not a wide margin as a result of the depth of the Big East's good but not great teams.

[MChambers]

I think it possible that Georgetown will tweak things a bit and get the ball to Monroe low more often with the intention that he score the ball as his primary option. If so, I think he will, and will increase his scoring average. If that happens, their entire offense might improve.

There might be an obstacle to going this route. Why do I say this? Why haven't they tried it?

From the little I've seen, Monroe isn't very comfortable as a low post scorer.