2011-12 Big East Thread

[ehh]

Let's have it, about a month til Midnight Madness.

Once again we'll be the best conference in the land by a significant margin and things should be entertaining as hell as always. With likely no NBA season it's all the more reason to get pumped up for college ball.

UConn and Syracuse are the preseason favorites in most people's eyes as of now with Pitt, Louisville and Marquette right behind them. A usual, there's a dozen teams that may finish between 3rd and 8th in the conference.

Some of the things I'm going to be keeping my eye on this year...

• Syracuse's point guard situation. Triche and Scoop aren't true PG's and the Orange haven't had one since Flynn left. I still never trust a college team to be great without a quality PG. Not to mention Jardine is the worst decision maker I have ever seen in the conference.
• The development of Fab Melo. He was a monumental bust last year, we'll see how he improves. He needs improvement in virtually all areas, from his body/athleticism/coordination to skill to understanding of the game.
• St. John's loaded freshman class. With so many wings some frosh won't see the floor much and it's hard to imagine some won't transfer out. Needless to say, 10 freshman of which 6 are 4-star guys will be fun to keep an eye on.
• UConn and life after Kemba Walker. The team has crazy depth and a lot of talent but they have no one to fill the gap left by Walker in terms of clutch play, ability to carry the team for stretches and to score when entire defenses are focused on stopping him. Jeremy Lamb will be the go-to guy but he's not Walker for sure.
• Andre Drummond. The best big man prospect since Greg Oden that's drawn comparisons to Amare Stoudemire and Shawn Kemp. Drummond is the piece that could give UConn legit repeat aspirations if he lives up to the hype.
• Will Georgetown and Villanova start to turn things around. After a 3-year stretch where the Hoyas were essentially the best team in the conference they have had three ugly seasons. Nova hasn't been much better. The most surprising to me is how remarkably soft both programs have been the last two years. The trademark toughness of these two original Big East powers has been AWOL. It doesn't looks like a promising season for either team, perhaps one can make a surprise run this year.

[Bighoff]

Louisville has a lot of talent on the roster, if Buckles and Swop can come back have a healthy seasons this team is going to be giving people fits. While there isn't any true man in the middle there are a 2-3 players who can fill the spot. Blackshear and Behanan will be looked at for some big minutes and production. Blackshear is my pre-season pick for Big East freshman of the year, it's a homer pick but I don't care.

[chilli311]

As an Irish fan, I'm not looking forward to this season. Losing Hansbrough is going to be tough. I think the Irish will be sitting right in the middle of the Big East with an early exit from the BET, and will be a bubble team for the big tourney.

[bigeastbumrush]

Quote: Originally Posted by ehh

[*]St. John's loaded freshman class. With so many wings some frosh won't see the floor much and it's hard to imagine some won't transfer out. Needless to say, 10 freshman of which 6 are 4-star guys will be fun to keep an eye on.

People say Freshmen can't win in the BE.

I think this squad will make some noise. We'll probably lose alot of close games because there's no one on the team who's 'been there before'.

But I think we'll blow a couple teams out the water because some of these Freshmen are that good.

The X-factor for this team will be Norvel Pelle. He's a 6'10 Freshman from Cali.

When I saw the tape of this kid, he reminded me of a young Kevin Garnett.

If Lavin can stay on his *** and show him the big picture, sky's the limit. The kid seems to have a very lackadaisical attitude and seems to not realize his potential.

Outside of SJU...I'm interested to see the show that Jeremy Lamb puts on. He's had a great summer to add to a great year last year.

Also, will Rakeem Christmas bring anything to the table. He didn't strike me as the best Center in the nation and I have questions if he can even player Center (more PF).

I fully expect Ashton Gibbs of Pitt to be the BE POY.

[crques]

WVU will be young and very inexperienced, but they do return Kilicli, Jones, and Bryant. They'll definitely need immediate contributions from the freshmen. An NIT bid might be a more realistic expectation for this year's squad, but as always Huggins will get the most out of his roster, regardless of inexperience or depth.

[KG]

Despite getting literally beat up on our Asia tour we still won all of our games over there. We don't have the big name like we have had for some long (green, Hibbert, Monroe, Freeman) but we'll be more balanced than most teams. Jason Clark & Hollis Thompson should be our best 2 players but our season will probably hinge on what we can get out of our post players. We're also young as hell too (2 SRs and 1 JR) so I don't know how we'll do out of the gates. We go out to Hawaii for the Maui Invitational so it could get ugly.

[ehh]

KG - what's up with your PG situation? Looks bleak to an ignorant outsider, you have any insight?

[bigeastbumrush]

Ugh...

3 St. John's Freshmen declared academically ineligible:

Quote:

Three members of Steve Lavin‘s highly ranked 2011 recruiting class were declared academically ineligible Thursday. Amir Garrett, a 6-7 small forward, JaKarr Sampson, a 6-8 forward, and Norvel Pelle, a 6-10 center, are not eligible to suit up in the first semester, which includes a Dec. 1 game at Kentucky. They account for one-third of St. John’s incoming nine-man recruiting class.

Quote:

If granted, the first time Garrett, Pelle and Sampson would be able to participate in Red Storm team practice would be Dec. 19, with their first potential game participation on Dec. 21 vs. Texas Pan-American.

SJU Freshmen ineligible



So much for continuity and gelling as a unit.