Big East Tournament Preview

Pre S. (Like a P.S. but before the body of the post, not after.) I thought this "Who should I root for" flow chart on Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician was hilarious. My favorite part ws the "Irish Catholic?"-No, "Roman Catholic"-No, "Some other weird Catholic?"-Yes arrows that lead to Providence. Awesome. Also awesome is Nunes-Magician blogger Sean Keely, who put a link to the Sports Sauna on his "Cuse Connections" list. That means I am now 2 clicks away from espn.com, since Nunes-Magician is on ESPN's college basketball blog roll! Great stuff. On the days when I don't post, read Nunes-Magician.

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I love conference championship week. It's my fourth favorite week of the college basketball calendar, after 1.) The opening weekend of the NCAAs, 2.) NCAA Championship weekend, and 3.) NCAA regionals weekend. Actually, when I really stop to think about it, there have been years when I've had more fun watching conference championships than that year's Final Four.

Sports Sauna Emeritus Chris asked me this a couple weeks ago. At the beginning of the year you have two options. 1.)You could win the Big East Tournament but lose in the Sweet 16. 2.) You could play out the season and see what happens. I said 2, but that I even had to think about it shows how much I care about the Big East tourney. (Chris said 1, by the way.) Throw them all out there and play to win the game, Jim! And honestly, if you gave me that same choice today, I'd take 1. This isn't a national championship-caliber SU team.

Who is going to win the Big East? I don't know. But I'm going to give you predictions anyway, because that's what we do, and by we I mean bloggers (not historians). But first let's look at the big picture. Bubble watchers and bracketologists will know that the Big East has locked up 10 bids. The last remaining question mark is Marquette. (In fact, we should call them Question Marquette until Selection Sunday.) Question Marquette has some nice wins, but their season finale defeat at suddenly lukewarm Seton Hall was typical of their season: some nice wins, some eyebrow-raising losses. Still, even if they merely beat Providence in the opening round tomorrow, they should be in. The Big East will have 11 bids.

That's amazing, but Question Marquette's fate isn't particularly evocative. What is fascinating is the way those 10 teams that are locks for the tourney can be split into two distinct groups:

The Mila Kunis "Looking Fabulous" Group
Pittsburgh
Notre Dame
Syracuse
Louisville
Cincinnati

The Nicole Kidman "Past Peak" Group
St. John's
Georgetown
Connecticut
Villanova

Oh! I almost forgot! There is a third group:

The James Franco Group
West Virginia

Marshon Brooks and Providence is the poor man's Justin Timberlake to West Virginia's James Franco. I would much rather watch Brooks play a game in the tourney, even if the Friars got knocked out immediately then see Bob Huggins and Co. go one- or two-and-out from the 5-seed Lunardi currently has them projected for. (By the way, I came up with the "Timberlake should have hosted instead of Franco" idea before I listened to Dan Silver suggest the same thing on the BS Report, but I did love his idea of just giving Timberlake the hosting gig for 20 years, Bob Hope style.)

But I digress. Most of those teams are self-explanatory. Putting St. John's in the Kidman group might be a bit harsh, but that Seton Hall loss earlier this week was very telling. The Red Storm were playing for the double-bye, and they couldn't get it done against an inferior team. Steve Lavin is going to rebuild the Red Storm, but they're not for real just yet.

That brings me to my larger point; besides pulling for Syracuse, I'm very interested to see which of the Kunis group keeps the momentum riding, and which of the Kidmans can get things turned around. Of course, I'm not saying that teams always carry momentum into the tournament, or that teams can't turn their momentum around when they get into the tournament. But if you're an SU fan, you'll feel much worse about the Orange's chances if they get upset in their first Big East game. They've looked great, and we want them to keep looking great. The same is true for the rest of the Kunis teams, while the Kidmans want to shake off that botox and rediscover their mojo. That's what I'll be watching for this week.

What do I think will happen in every game? Glad you asked! (Here's the bracket, by the way.)

First Round
9. UConn over 16. DePaul
12. Seton Hall over 13. Rutgers
10. Villanova over 15. South Florida
14. Providence over 11. Question Marquette

Comments: The Friars get the upset in an otherwise quiet first round, keeping Question Marquette a question mark heading into Selection Sunday

Second Round
8. Georgetown over 9. UConn - both teams have lost 4 of their last 5, but I think Kemba Walker's red hot start screwed up UConn's identity in the long term. Chris Wright probably won't be back yet for the Hoyas, which seems like a critical problem for this match-up, but my gut tells me JT-III will pull this out. And that is despite knowing the Hoyas scored 46 points in the game Wright got hurt in against Cincy, and 51 and 47 in the two games after that (SU, @ Cincy).

12. Seton Hall over 5. St. John's - The SU-St. John's 3rd round matchup is too good to be true. Jeremy Hazell is the story of the opening rounds.

10. Villanova over 7. Cincinnati - The Wildcats are the Kidman team that turns things around. They're not this bad, and their 4-game slide has come against 3 of the Kunis teams plus St. John's.

14. Providence over 6. West Virginia - Seriously, can we make this a play-in game for the NCAAs?

Third Round
1. Pittsburgh over 8. Georgetown - Maybe I've had my head buried too deeply in the books, but I feel like Pittsburgh hasn't gotten enough credit this season. I'm not going to say they're the team to beat in the NCAAs, but I feel like this wide-open field will lead to Jamie Dixon's deepest run yet.

4. Syracuse over 12. Seton Hall - I'm a bit confused about how the Big East scheduling works...why didn't the Orange didn't play the Pirates this year?

10. Villanova over 2. Notre Dame - I wish I could see a poll of all non-Notre Dame and non-SU fans asking, who would you rather have on your team - Ben Hansbrough or Ricky Jackson? I can't even think about that question rationally, which is part of the reason I don't take the Irish seriously.

3. Louisville over 14. Providence - The Marshon Brooks dream dies.

Semi-finals
1. Pittsburgh over 4. Syracuse - I'd like to hire Leonardo DiCaprio to place the idea in my brain that the Orange can beat Dixon's man-to-man, because I just can't believe it at this point.

10. Villanova over 3. Louisville - Impressive job by Pitino this year. Anytime you can finish 3rd in the best conference in the country with Kyle Kuric as your 2nd best scorer, you deserve to win Coach of the Year.

Finals
1. Pittsburgh over 10. Villanova - The best team takes the title.