The Big East Beast

As I'm watching the Villanova vs. UCONN game on ESPN for the "Big Monday" match-up I start to realize how unbelievable Big East basketball really is.  It's unreal.  It's ridiculous.  It's absurd.  Any of those words work.  As of right now there are five teams ranked in the country that are part of the Big East Conference and they are all in the top 20 as of right now.  Not bad.  But what really makes this conference special is that it could be the best college conference of any college sports and any team can be upset on any given day in this competitive conference.

Take yesterday (Sunday) for the best example of the year.  Louisville walks into the Carrier Dome and beats Syracuse by 6 in a great back and forth game.  Syracuse was ranked third at the time and first in the Big East, while Louisville was unranked in country and seventh in the Big East.  Yes, Rick Pitino is a great coach but his team is currently on a "down" year, even though most teams would kill to have a down year like that Syracuse is still a better overall team.  Now, the Hoyas of Georgetown come into Jersey to play the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers at the RAC and anyone who actually thought Rutgers had a chance to win was crazy.  They were 2 and something insane against teams ranked in the top 10 and lets be honest, Rutgers isn't exactly a dominating figure in the Big East sporting a 13-12 overall record and a 3-9 conference record putting them one spot above last place DePaul.  But somehow, someway Fred Hill Jr. and the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers pulled off possibly the biggest upset of the year thus far. 

Seriously, think about it.  What other conference, in any sports, is this competitive?  Maybe Big XII or SEC football?  But the bottom half of those conferences will never beat a Texas or a Florida/LSU.  One conference that matches up is NJAC Baseball.  Just playing I had to give it a plug once this year and I couldn't refuse comparing my college baseball teams conference to Big East basketball.  Now back to reality.  If a sub-par team who is second to last in the conference can upset the third place team in the conference who knows what else is possible.  I'm also excited for the tournament because I think about 3 years ago Syracuse needed to win the conference tournament to get into the NCAA tournament and ended up doing that being the 6 seed.  Really? The 6 seed winning any conference tournament?

As of right now the Nova-UCONN game seems to be another upset.  There's 1:26 left in the game and UCONN is up 7.  Let it be known that the game is being played at Villanova (well the Wachovia Center in Philly) and every game Syracuse has lost this year has been home to an unranked team.  This is where I'm going with this, it seems most "upset" games are lost with the home team being ranked and the visiting team being extremely underrated.  Maybe the students just figured it wasn't good enough to go to.  But regardless this conference is out of control, any team can win at any time regardless of conference standings.