Sports Then and Now

Monte Towe

The March Sports Then and Now Vintage Athlete of the Month helped lead the North Carolina State Wolfpack to an NCAA Championship despite always being the smallest man on the court.

The 5-foot-7 Monte Towe never let his size (or lack thereof) minimize his impact on the court as he was the floor general for a Wolfpack team that went 79-7 during his three seasons as the starting point guard. Read the rest of this entry →

Ben Hansbrough and Notre Dame is just one of the teams that makes the Big East the strongest conference in college basketball.

Welcome to Part II of my ranking of the top conferences in Division I college basketball, just in time for the start of the conference tournaments.

Illustrating the volatility of the 2010-11 season, this past weekend, #1 Duke falls to Virginia Tech, who a few days later loses to Boston College, a team on the bubble hoping for an at large bid, pushing Ohio state into the #1 spot in both polls.

BYU suspends one of its marquis players, Brandon Davies, for violating the schools honor code, and they go from Dance Darling to big question mark.  Ranked #3 after beating San Diego state last weekend, BYU, in its first game without Davies in the line-up, is upset by New Mexico losing by a margin of 18 points.  Is this a momentary lapse by a team that has been dominant all season or is Davies that much of an impact player that it changes the dynamics of that team significantly?  Only time will tell.  That is an amazing kick off to the month of March and is why this season is like no other.

With that said, here are my Top 5 Conferences:

Top Conference #5: The Atlantic Coast Conference
No conference represents the volatility of this season quite like the ACC.  This is a conference that at one time looked as though it could send as many as 6 or 7 teams to the tournament and now may be lucky to send 4.  The ACC conference has only two teams in the top 25 in Duke (starting the weekend ranked number 1 and now ranked #4) and North Carolina outside the top ten at #13 with a chance finish tops in the ACC with one more win.  This is a very competitive conference with Florida State and Virginia Tech likely heading to the dance but also includes teams like Boston College, Maryland, Miami, and Clemson who currently find themselves on the outside looking in.  Duke is likely the 2 seed in the East, North Carolina the three seed out of the West, with Florida State the 10 seed and Virginia Tech the 8 seed both coming out of the southeast bracket.  These four teams are a combined 8-9 against ranked opponents with Duke carrying 4 of those wins. So while this conference may only send 4 teams, they will be battle tested teams coming out of a strong conference. Read the rest of this entry →

Jimmer Fredette has been the face of college basketball this season and has the BYU Cougars poised for a high seed in the NCAA Tournament.

If you are paying attention at all to this year’s division I basketball season, you know how crazy things are.  This year is wide open, and for the first time it is a true statement to say that anyone can win it all.  Of course, there are the usual players like Duke, Ohio State, and North Carolina (who is in the top 20 but is usually in the top 5 year in and year out), but there are also teams like BYU, Xavier, Vanderbilt, and Missouri in spots normally occupied by teams from the ACC and SEC.  My boys from Harvard by the way are close to cracking the top 30 and are in a dog fight with Princeton for the top spot in the Ivy league and their own spot in the dance.

It is for this reason that I thought it would be fun to rank the top 10 conferences since this year has been so wide open, and so fun to watch.  My criteria for making this analysis was focused on how many teams are represented by that conference in the top 50 as well as quality wins by those teams against other top opponents.  For reference, there are currently 32 division 1 conferences (33 if you count the independents) with 346 teams in those conferences.  Those teams are vying for 68 spots in the NCAA tournament.

So as we come out of February, and head into March Madness, here is my ranking of the top conferences.  I am breaking this article into two parts, Part I being conferences 10 – 6.  Here goes:

Top Conference #10: Conference USA
The list starts with CUSA ranked at 10 in my top ten.  This conference has two viable teams who will go dancing from this conference in Memphis and UAB.  This conference boasts five teams with 20 wins, (UAB, Memphis, UTEP, Southern Miss, and Marshall).  That said, they are a combined 2-5 against top twenty five talent.  CUSA will be well represented in the NIT with a log jam of teams with impressive season win totals.  When you look at the early brackets, Memphis will come out of the West while UAB will be the 12 seed out of the southeast.

Top Conference #9: Horizon Conference
The home of Milwaukee and Butler and Cleveland State, this is a conference that has made news the last few years with Butler becoming the Gonzaga of sorts for this conference.  Butler used to be an unknown team who has since had some marquis appearances in past tournaments.  This conference will likely send two, potentially three teams to the dance, with Milwaukee and Butler likely coming out of the southwest.  This is a conference of giant killers and will play spoiler to a team like Cincinnati, Kansas or even Duke.  Given how this season has gone, it would not be a surprise to see both Milwaukee and Butler win their early round games, and potentially play each other which is possible given current brackets having both these teams coming out of the same region.   Read the rest of this entry →

A young Lou Carnesecca coaching Chris Mullin at St. Johns.

In 1985, The Big East conference dominated the national rankings and the NCAA tournament, sending 3 teams to the final four (Georgetown, Villanova, and St. Johns) with two of those teams vying for the national championship.

Georgetown and Villanova played one of the greatest finals games in history and to this day this game is considered one of the biggest upsets in college basketball. A game in which a heavily favored Georgetown team, coached by John Thompson, and lead by a dominant Patrick Ewing lost to underdog Villanova, a team coached by Rollie Massimino and featured Ed Pinckney winning the MVP as Villanova won the tournament in stunning fashion by a margin of two points.

The Big East was special that year for the amazing amount of talent that was in the conference combined with a crop of energetic coaches, in the prime or in the early years of their respective careers, matching wits in what was at the time the best college basketball conference.

Three time Big East player of the year Chris Mullin played on that St. John’s team coached by Lou Carnesecca (remember those sweaters), A young Gary Williams was coaching a solid BC team featuring Michael Adams in the backcourt, and Syracuse had a great team that year featuring Dwayne “Pearl” Washington and Rony Seikaly coached by one of the greatest basketball coaches in history, Jim Boeheim. These players are now legends, many of whom went on to NBA careers. It was their journey through the Big East conference, the elite conference in the nation in 1984 – 1985, that helped make them the great players they would become.

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Pennsylvania was once known as The Coal State when coal mining was one of its’ leading industries. Regardless of where that stands in the state’s economy today, the Syracuse University men’s basketball team has to wonder if the mines have been rejuvenated over the past decade or so in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. If they were to investigate, the Orange would probably find Panthers and Wildcats mining the coal.

Big East foes Pittsburgh and Villanova have left Syracuse feeling like one who wakes up Christmas morning and finds just that – coal – in their stocking more times than not. Despite a stellar run of success by the Orange since the 2000-01 season, which peaked with their first and only national championship in 2003, Pittsburgh and Villanova have been a thorn in their side. Syracuse is only 10-23 against the Pennsylvania duo since the 2000-01 season commenced.

Rick Jackson of Syracuse battles against Mouphtaou Yarou of Villanova on Jan. 22 in the Carrier Dome. Villanova won 83-72. (Richard Mackson/US Presswire)

The coal was evident twice last week for the No. 3 Orange whose undefeated season of 18-0 ended with back-to-back losses to two of their toughest conference foes, both nationally ranked. First came a trip to the Petersen Events Center in Pittsburgh where Syracuse lost to the fifth-ranked Panthers, 74-66 on Jan. 17. Pittsburgh jumped on the Orange early en route to a 19-0 lead. Although Syracuse scored the next 17 points to pull within two, they would never lead in the game which featured just one tie, that coming in the second half.

Five days later on Jan. 22, the Orange hosted No. 7 Villanova in the Carrier Dome before a crowd of 33,736, the second largest on-campus crowd in NCAA college basketball history. Villanova prevailed 83-72 behind a timely shooting display that busted the fabled 2-3 zone of Syracuse. It was Villanova’s 13^th win over the Orange in the Dome, the most of any Syracuse opponent all-time.

Two games against ranked opponents in less than six full days and the Orange had been humbled with a pair of defeats, knocking them not only from the ranks of the undefeated and from atop the Big East standings, but causing them to drop in the national rankings. Syracuse had to feel as though a lump of coal had been handed to them not once, but twice. The Orange, ranked third in both the Associated Press and the USA Today/ESPN Coaches Polls on Jan. 17, fell to 10^th and ninth in the polls respectively on Jan. 24.

Thus, Pittsburgh and Villanova have been the Achilles heel of Syracuse which has otherwise dominated most of their Big East foes. Since the 2000-01 season, the Orange sports a winning record against 11 of the other 13 teams that currently make up the Big East which expanded to 16 teams for the 2005-06 season. Read the rest of this entry →

The Texas Longhorns will get even more exposure in the future following their deal with ESPN.

I don’t mean to sound flip or disrespectful, but I was shocked and bewildered when I heard the news that the University of Texas is partnering with ESPN to create a specific television network that will be “All Longhorns, All the Time.”

While it left some of us scratching our heads, obviously more than one person at ESPN thinks this opportunity is as primed for success as a Texas oil mine because they are going to pay the University $300 million over the next 20 year for the right to help develop, launch and operate the network.

The network will include one exclusive UT football game each year (pretty good bet it won’t be UT-Oklahoma) as well as eight men’s basketball games and women’s basketball games that are not televised elsewhere. The rest of the programming will be a combination of Olympic sports, coaches’ shows for every UT program and other campus programming including visiting speakers, lectures and commencement.

I understand that UT is the largest university in the second most populated state in our wonderful country.  However, I can’t believe there are that many people outside of Texas that are really going to be interested in watching the UT men’s tennis coaches’ show or who will be waiting with baited breath to watch a women’s soccer game on a Thursday evening.

It sounds wonderful if you are one of the 48,000 students at the school, approximately 450,000 alumni, or even the 25 million residents of Texas, but what about the other 283 million people who live in the United States and don’t bleed UT orange?

Because it isn’t even like the athletic programs at Texas are all national powers with high-profile superstars and national championships coming out of their ears.

The national championship won by UT in men’s swimming and diving in 2009-2010 was the first by the university since they claimed the football and women’s indoor track & field during the 2005-2006 school year. Read the rest of this entry →