Big East : Unpredictability reigns in 1st half of conference’s season
Fab Melo was supposed to come to Syracuse and dominate. The No. 4 center recruit in the Class of 2010 was supposed to immediately make up for the loss of Arinze Onuaku in SU’s lineup. He was supposed to be the Big East Rookie of the Year.
But 22 games into the season, Melo averages 2.2 points and 1.9 rebounds per game. He’s getting fewer minutes than fellow freshman Baye Moussa Keita.
Not much has gone according to plan for Melo. Or, for that matter, the entire Big East conference. At the midpoint of the conference season, preseason predictions inside and outside of the Big East have gone awry.
Melo was tabbed as the preseason Rookie of the Year. Connecticut guard Kemba Walker was not tabbed as the league’s preseason Player of the Year. And overall, the Big East standings don’t look like the preseason predictions.
‘Everyone wants to predict and see how their team is going to do,’ Cincinnati head coach Mick Cronin said in the Big East coaches’ teleconference on Jan. 27. ‘You’ve got to take it day by day.’
Taking those games day by day is a necessity in the Big East this season. Much of the unpredictability and surprises of the league so far are because of the overall strength of the conference. No one player or one team is dominant.
Consider this: the difference between second-place Notre Dame and 13th-place Rutgers is three games.
‘The point is that a mistake is so finite that a missed basket, a couple missed foul shots, someone makes a 3 on you, that’s going to be the difference between someone in this league,’ Connecticut head coach Jim Calhoun said in the Big East coaches’ teleconference on Jan. 20.
Almost half the league’s teams are ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 poll, so Big East teams often find themselves matching up with a ranked opponent. Yet programs continue to be nationally acclaimed, more so than those in any other conference. Even if the Big East does trump other conferences with its 16 members.
Providence head coach Keno Davis said the conference stays strong year after year because it continues to get top-notch players. That, he said, can be attributed to the league’s coaches.
‘Not just the head coaches,’ Davis said, ‘but the assistant coaches that have done such a great job in recruiting that you can lose so many talented players each year out of the Big East those last two years.
‘A lot of the young guys coming in and the guys that have been in the program have been able to develop into high-quality players.’
Take Louisville. The team that lost two of its most valuable players in Edgar Sosa and Jerry Smith.
Not a single player from Louisville was picked among the preseason All-Big East first team, second team or honorable mention. The Cardinals were picked to finish eighth in the preseason Big East poll. But Cardinals senior guard Preston Knowles has stepped up and led the team to a surprising second-place standing in the conference, despite Louisville’s loss to Georgetown on Monday.
Louisville head coach Rick Pitino has found that talent alone won’t get teams far in the Big East. The games are part mental.
‘We have a great attitude,’ Pitino said in the Big East coaches’ teleconference on Jan. 27. ‘That’s the one strength of our ball club. We lack a lot of things, but attitude makes up for a lot of shortcomings that we do have.’
Other teams that flew under the radar in the preseason have found their own saviors in the rigors of the Big East. At West Virginia, unheralded Casey Mitchell has replaced Da’Sean Butler and Devin Ebanks. At Notre Dame, Ben Hansbrough has filled Luke Harangody’s shoes. Both players are in the top five in scoring in the Big East. Neither was named to an All-Big East preseason team.
The only steady one at this point is Pittsburgh, a team that actually sits where it was predicted to be: atop the conference. Louisville stands tied for second. Cincinnati, picked to finish 12th, has a 5-4 record in the Big East — the same record as a Syracuse team picked to finish third in the league.
Every game in the conference is a battle. Teams beat a squad at the top of the standings, then turn around and lose to one near the bottom. For example, Cronin watched last week as the top three teams in the conference — Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Villanova — all suffered losses.
‘There are a lot of good teams,’ Cronin said. ‘You can’t pencil in who you think is going to win every game. The teams in the first three spots of our league all lost games.
‘If you aren’t getting better, you’re in trouble because there are too many good coaches and players in this league.’
Big man on campus: Dwight Hardy, guard, St. John’s
Hardy had 26 points in the Red Storm’s 93-78 whooping of No. 3 Duke on Sunday. This honor could have gone to Justin Brownlee, who had a stellar game himself with 20 points, nine rebounds and six assists in the win. Both players had games worthy of the best in the Big East this week, and their performances against the mighty Blue Devils put St. John’s on the national map.
Game to watch: No. 25 West Virginia at No. 12 Villanova
Villanova has lost two straight since its big win over Syracuse on Jan. 22, and the Mountaineers most recently beat Cincinnati. Both teams will be coming off of weekday games. West Virginia faces off against Seton Hall while Villanova plays Marquette. Neither of those games is a given. If either Villanova or WVU lose its game before this one, expect the losing team to come out looking for revenge.
