The Big East Rolls

[dex]

Jon Rothstein ‏@jonrothstein 24m24 minutes ago
Villanova outscores VCU 47-23 in the second half for an impressive 77-53 victory. Big win for the Wildcats. And for the Big East.

[mikey2]

Nova looked really good in the second half...blew out VCU...which isn't easy to do.

BE is sending a message (so far) 32-2.

Marquette looks like the red-headed step child right now. Two losses already and now trailing NJIT 18-17.

Mikey

[dex]

ESPF'N couldn't wait to tweet this one in behalf of the acc

SportsCenter ‏@sportscenter 1h1 hour ago
No. 6 Louisville jumps out to 29-0 lead in 87-26 romp over Savannah State. Cardinals force 26 turnovers in victory

[mikemc]

MU squeaks by NJIT and SHU beats Illinois St. by 4 with Gibbs putting up 40..


....gotta love friartown...

[wtm97]

ESPF'N

Gotta love Frairtown...ESPF'N yowsa.

[dmac80]

Creighton rolled at home and #12 Nova with a big win over #19 Michigan at Barclays in a pretty awesome game. Nova wins the 3rd early season tourney for the league.

Big East 36-2.

[cbeane51]

Nov 26, 2014 0:14:23 GMT -5 dmac80 said:

Creighton rolled at home and #12 Nova with a big win over #19 Michigan at Barclays in a pretty awesome game. Nova wins the 3rd early season tourney for the league.

Big East 36-2.

Big night tonight: Butler/N.Carolina, Gtown/Florida, St.John's/Minnesota, DePaul/Lehigh

[friar82]

Butler dominates the offensive glass to beat #5 UNC, 74-66. Love the fact that Jay Bilas had to commentate this BE win over yet another ACC team (I bet his ESPN panties are all bunched up right now!).

I'm loosing count of the BE's - OOC record... 37-2?

Way to go Bulldogs!

[thewalk]

another huge W for the conference....this is getting ridiculous....

[pembroke04]

Win or lose, Roy will be lubing up his throat soon enough...

[friar82]

For all the talk and hype, a number of the ACC's top teams(based on the Conference's Pre-Season Polls) have fallen in the last few days...

#2 UNC* - falls to Butler
#5 SU* - falls to California
#6 Pitt - falls to San Diego State
#7 ND - falls to Providence
#8 FSU - falls to Providence

* = Shrouded by NCAA Academic Infractions



"...Swofford has built his career on the appropriate balance of academics, athletic achievement and integrity..."
Swofford Bio: www.theacc.com/#!/page/bioJohnSwofford

[dex]

Good one '82...they cheat DaGum Roy cheats Boeheim, great institutional control you son-of-a-snitch...and the prissy Bilas swallows hard
when the bcs5 breaks away they will be disciplining themselves, The Book According to Swofford...yeah right, the honor system and there ain't no honor among those thieves

Big East improves to 37-2 in 2014-15 as Butler knocks off North Carolina
By Sam Vecenie | CBSSports.com
November 26, 2014 2:29 pm ET


Butler used excellent hustle and defense to defeat UNC in the Bahamas. (USATSI)
Coming into the season, the Big East was one of the biggest question marks in the entire NCAA. Outside of Villanova's strength, no one knew what to expect out of anyone in the league.

Butler was without its coach. Creighton was missing Doug McDermott for the first time in four years. St. John's had no depth after losing two frontcourt pieces. Providence and Xavier lost their do-everything lead guards Bryce Cotton and Semaj Christon. Georgetown was coming off of a losing conference season.

Though we're now only two weeks into the season, the conference has answered those questions in a way that not even the league's biggest optimist could have anticipated.

Today, it was the Butler Bulldogs kicking off the Battle 4 Atlantis in a big way, beating North Carolina 74-66. That improved the conference's record this season 37-2, with the only losses coming from Marquette.

But it's not just the record that's impressive for the league so far; it's the teams that the conference has defeated to accumulate that record. Over the last two nights, Villanova beat VCU and Michigan on a neutral floor in New York. Creighton beat chic preseason Final Four contender Oklahoma at home. Providence beat Florida State and Notre Dame at the Hall of Fame Tip-Off. Xavier has soundly beaten solid mid-majors Stephen F. Austin, Murray State and Long Beach State. Even Seton Hall won its early-season event, the Paradise Jam tournament in the Virgin Islands.

And now this win for Butler. This was a statement by interim coach Chris Holtmann, whose strategy was absolutely superb in this game. Even though North Carolina played particularly poorly today, he put his team in the perfect position to take advantage of the Tar Heels' missteps. He packed the paint, basically daring the Tar Heels to shoot over the Bulldogs, which they were unable to do as their 4-16 mark from 3-point range shows. Their defensive patience and principles showed, and Holtmann deserves respect for getting the Bulldogs well-drilled on that end.

The other thing Holtmann kept having his team do was crash the offensive glass as the North Carolina defense rotated into an abyss of nothingness. As the Tar Heels continued to over-rotate and then force themselves into awkward recovery positions, the Bulldogs hit the glass hard and came up with a staggering 29 offensive rebounds -- the most ever against a Roy Williams-coached UNC team. Those rebounds led to 19 points, which was the difference in the game. The Tar Heels will likely do a lot of work this week boxing out and staying principled with their rotations so that this positional problem doesn't happen again.

"When you look at the box score, that pretty much tells the story," North Carolina point guard Marcus Paige said. "They had 15 more shots than us."

This is obviously a huge win for the Bulldogs, who weren't thought of as an NCAA Tournament hopeful coming into the season due to struggles in 2013-14, as well as questions about coach Brandon Miller. Heck, even our own Matt Norlander had them last in his Big East preview before the season. If Miller isn't to return to Butler -- as many seem to think is likely -- Holtmann has shown that he is the man for the job. He probably deserves the job regardless of Miller's status if he can get this team to the Tournament, which seems to be in reach.

And if Butler gets back to its winning ways, that helps the rest of the Big East.

Sure, the gaudy, ridiculous non-league record probably won't keep up even through the night. St. John's plays a tough game against Minnesota, Georgetown goes up against Florida, and DePaul could lose at any time to anyone. Eventually, someone is going to join Marquette in the loss column. Eventually, the league will come back down to earth and the ACCs and Big Tens of the world will take their rightful place as the best leagues in college hoops.

But for this specific moment in time, the Big East is on top of the college basketball world

[mikemc]

"Sure, the gaudy, ridiculous non-league record probably won't keep up even through the night. St. John's plays a tough game against Minnesota, Georgetown goes up against Florida, and DePaul could lose at any time to anyone. Eventually, someone is going to join Marquette in the loss column. Eventually, the league will come back down to earth and the ACCs and Big Tens of the world will take their rightful place as the best leagues in college hoops"


Bullchit!!

....gotta love friartown...

[dex]

http://instagram.com/p/v4BdBMp2wx

[friar82]

I guess ESPN & the ACC were in too big of a rush to bury the BigEast when it co-produced "Requiem".

We're baaaccckkk!