Unsatisfied

 Look me in the eye and tell me I'm satisfied

Headlines tomorrow will question the validity of the Big East. This much is sure. All of it will be deserved. What we don't know is if someone didn't dance themselves onto the hot seat. I don't have anyone in mind. That picture up there is totally random and without premeditation.

The bad news is that the Big East was 1-3 today, and that one isn't anything to brag about. The good news is that there are four more teams playing tomorrow and no one should sneak up on them. That message should be loud and clear. I hope the Mountaineers stayed up late enough to see the post game interview with Thompson. You never ever want to make your boss look like that. Seriously, ESPN News is calling it "Georgetown's Historic Upset" right now as I type this. How bout Ohio's historic upset? You know, a little something for the effort.

We're using Replacements song titles as a lead in for all of our posts during the tourney or until we use them all. You'll have to jump to the 40 second mark for the song.

Hey! Big East Champs!

I wanted to hold off on this until I had something to say about it. I still don't. But in a good way. For this team, this year, despite the record there seemed to be a lot of close games and I was never quite sure they deserved the ranking they were getting. I would be lying if I told you that I haven't been a glass half empty guy through the snopocalypse of 2010. Luckily, I've kept that to myself.

I saw a tweet from another Big East blogger that said, "WVU beat the #11, 8, & 7 teams to win the BE tourney. Two locks and one bubble team. Take that every other conference." You have to see that as a positive. Sure we didn't get to play the higher ranked teams. But shit, those teams came to play all year long and I don't know that anyone else could have beat them given the way the top teams performed in the tourney. Other than the losses to Purdue and Syracuse I felt like we had a chance to win all those games after falling behind. WVU played one of the tougher schedules in the country this year. Certainly one of the toughest we've seen in a long time, and came out relatively unscathed. Having said that, I think we do deserve the ranking. Plus, Country Roads playing after the game was pretty awesome! It got better when I considered how painful it was for Pitt fans. Yeah, I'm thinking about the ones that bought tickets for the whole tournament.




And you knew this was going to happen...



Looking at our bracket, you can't be too disappointed.There's some chances there. I don't want to say anymore strictly out of concern for messing with the Basketball Gods. Anyhow, WOOOOOO!!

Around the Big East Blogs

When we're too tired to do any real writing, we link up. And sadly, we haven't been linking to our friends and enemies too much lately. Shameful, but true.

As we get closer to the draft, you probably start wondering what happened to your favorite Mountaineer. Well, there's a blog for that, Eers in the Pros.

Luke Harangody gets the treatment over at the Wire on WMITC.

Mike Casazza is all over the possibilities of what Huggins might wear to the Cincinnati game tomorrow.

Orange 44 is talking about this game called Lacrosse.

If you haven't been hip to the Homoerotic ways of Eric Devendorf, you've been missing out.

LeBron floats an air biscuit, and Three Idiots have the video.

Pitt Blather is taking it better than I would.

Bleed Scarlet reporting that Rutgers will have co-offensive and co-defensive coordinators next year, and slips in a 30 Rock quote.

Fat White Guy is heading across the pond. Hopefully he won't be putting down the blog.

Marquette vs. UConn live chat is happening right now.

With the white-out and that line above, I'm reminded the Marquette has a tough road the last week of the regular season.

Cracked Sidewalks has a preview of the UConn game.

Friar Blog is happy happy happy happy. I would be too.

I Bleed Blue and White is kind of happy, too.

Big East Chat 2.0

Yup, we'll be chatting all things Big East sports this Wednesday at 9pm over at Orange 44. Please do come join us at 9pm. Show up a few minutes early so you can go through all the sign up stuff without missing any of the discussion. Be ready to talk bowl games, the candy ass negotiators that got us this mess of a bowl affiliation, and some basketball.

See you then.

Stuff, Stuff, and More Stuff

I think I speak for everyone when I say that last nights Big East Roundtable was a big success. Far too much talk about Syracuse sports for me to be much of a factor. The amount of cold meds I'm on also kept me from participating as much as I would have liked. I was seeing two of every letter on the keyboard. But unfortunately I didn't have a gun for each one.


Wait for it...


I want to officially throw my hat in the ring for Tommy Tuberville as the next Syracuse coach. What the Big East needs as much as anything else is good-to-great coaches, and Tuberville certainly falls in that category.

The people have spoken, and it seems we should retire numbers if you go by the poll on the right. Thanks everyone that voted! So, do you retire Darryl Talley's #90? I do before anyone else. If you aren't old enough to remember him in Old Gold and Blue, you really missed out.

My relatives that graduated from Ole Miss are completely ignoring my emails this morning. It wasn't a dominating win, but on the road against an SEC opponent that had won their last 25 non-con home games is a good thing. It was exciting to listen to and probably another reason I wasn't more active in the roundtable.

I don't think we need to be ranked in the top 25 just yet, but looking at this weeks CBB rankings I really have to wonder what the f is going on! Michigan? Navy? Both ahead of WVU? Really?!?!?!?

Thoughts on South Florida and the Whiteout later on this evening.

ACC Raid Was Good For The Big East

Not that I don't still hold some ill feelings toward the ACC, particularly Va. Tech, Miami, and BC. But after 5 years I think it's safe to say that the Big East has done very well, thank you. I think the best thing about it is that the Big East has had great success on the field while the ACC hasn't quite lived up to expectations.

And in one of the most critical and unforeseen byproducts of the realignment, the rival Big East Conference -- forced to expand in response to the flight of three of its schools to the ACC -- has strengthened its standing as a big-time football conference and fortified the depth of its basketball programs to an extent the ACC has yet to realize.

Traditional football powers Florida State and Miami have suffered through disappointing seasons the past two years, leaving Virginia Tech and a slew of middling programs to maintain the ACC's clout among Bowl Championship Series conferences.

Granted, the financial boost has been great for the ACC. In the long run you can't deny that the ACC boosted it's standing among BCS conferences. Eventually, they'll break through with a BCS bowl win. But for now, it's nice to point to the greater success the Big East has had.

And that's just talking about football. The 16 team basketball conference is a little heavy, but there isn't a conference in America that can claim the top to bottom strength of the Big East.

Back to football, the ACC's woes on the football field have allowed Big East schools to shine. Most importantly, in the eyes of recruits. West Virginia, Rutgers, and Pittsburgh all seem to be doing great with recruiting. Rich who? People can make fun of Bill Stewart all they want, he's got a staff full of top notch recruiters. Greg Schiano has turned down two top tier programs in the last two years, and that has to play big into his recent success on the recruiting trail. And Dave Wannstedt has always done well. But the win over West Virginia has people looking at Pitt as a contender this year. Surely something that will be big if they can continue the success on the field. We're still playing on Thursdays, but that's not such a bad thing.

HT: Wiz

Big East Fun Size Links

If you are not hip to the Octonion, I really can't help you anymore than demanding that you follow that link! If you don't, the terrorist will win. And you wouldn't want that! Would you?

Following that theme (possible Big East additions), Memphis is in secret negotiations with the Big East to join and they aren't.

The ACC sucks! Seems like it's been a while since I said that. This is also well worth your reading regarding the Big East/ACC thing if you didn't see the link.

Least cool person of 2007-2008 has been decided, and even if you aren't a Louisville fan you have to kind of feel that way too. Although if I was nominating someone, you know who that would be without me even saying it. Right?

Finally, I'd like to give a big hat tip to the sports writers of West Virginia for a banner week. You really did a great job guys. No, really!