The Big East Basketball conference is not what it once was. But it is college basketball only now, no college football. So it is unique and interesting in that sense. Big East basketball features one team ranked in the coaches poll, #17 Marquette. Georgetown and Creighton will be competitive though.
Then you have Coach Lav and St. John’s, who could be a factor. Villanova will be a tough out in the league. The you have a drop off to Providence, Xavier, Butler, Seton Hall and DePaul. That’s how our expert David Kmiecik has the Big East basketball hierarchy shaping up.
Fox Sports 1 signed a big deal to acquire the new television rights to the new league. And last night they held a two hour special launching the 2013-14 season of Big East basketball. Which live look-ins from all ten campuses.
All of the Big East basketball teams held their own Midnight Madness events last night, and FS1 showed a few highlights. The studio show was hosted by the legendary Bill Raftery. PUT IT ON THE DECK
ONIONS!!!
SEND IT IN!!!
Their show was pretty solid, but the attending one of these events in person?? Well, there’s a reason I’ve only attended one of the dumb pointless endeavors in person. And didn’t go back until last night, when I went to DePaul’s event just two metro stops away. And this was all much ado about nothing. The one I went to at Illinois sucked massively too. So as much as I love college basketball, even though I went to two major college basketball powerhouses (Illini and Michigan State) I still think Midnight Madnesses are the stupidest shit possible.
on to the Big East basketball power rankings/preview. We’ll have links to the top three in-depth previews when completed. Otherwise click on the team name and number where indicted for more on each team.
Marquette
Georgetown
Creighton
MU’s Davante Gardner should give Doug McDermott the best run for his money to be Big East basketball player of the year. But it’s clearly McDermott’s award to lose. Steve Lavin in entering his third year at the helm of SJ. Lav returns 5 starters from a NIT 2nd round team, and he has one NCAA tourney appearance to his credit. Butler without Brad Stevens is a shell of what they once were. No more national title games with Butler in them. THANK GOD cuz AIN’T NOBODY WANT TO WATCH THAT!
The man who has turned this program around, Oliver Purnell” –Bobby Simmons introducing the DePaul coach to the crowd.
LOLOLOLOLOLOL BAAHAHAHAHAAAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA
OMG do you want to take this one or should I?
Maybe Simmons means that Purnell turned the program from very good to very bad. And that’s how they got turned around.
Since Purnell took over three years ago and the program is 7-82 in league play since 2008. No power conference team allowed more points last season than the DePaul Blue Demons.
Here’s a DePaul basketball season preview by someone who knows way more about college hoops than I do. To Purnell’s credit, he did immediately correct Simmons, “saying I haven’t turned the program yet, but with your help (the fans) I will.”
If DePaul was 1/8 as good as giving away free food as they were winning games and selling tickets, then they’d really have something there. The Giordano’s food truck was empty in less than 40 minutes. And all of the food trucks had LONG ASS LINES. I seriously felt I was in one of those old movies about The Great Depression. Good thing I really like pickles; not as much as Snookie does, but still. Because pickles is all I got.
Paul M. Banks is the owner of The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. He’s also a regular analyst on news talk radio stations across the world; with weekly segments on NBC and Fox Sports Radio. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks) and RSS
