The Big East: Great NCAA Tournament Disappointment, or Greatest Disappointment?

There's been a lot of noise in the sports media about the Big East and their record number of bids to the NCAA tournament. A week ago, the chatter was all about how dominant the Big East was this year and how they truly deserved the unprecedented eleven bids earned by teams from Division I-A's largest conference. There were some naysayers, of course, but they were generally at the margins of the discussion. Each of the teams have proven themselves during the grueling Big East schedule. It used to be that if you finished at or above .500 in the ACC, you had a guaranteed bid to the tournament; this year, if you broke even or better in the Big East, you were in.

On paper, the Big East looked dominant: nine of the top 24 seeds were Big East teams. Going by the chalk these teams would make it to the round of 32, with 9-seed Villanova likely to pull an upset over 8-seed George Mason. Even 11-seed Marquette -- pitted against 6-seed Xavier, and having just defeated eventual 5-seed West Virginia in the Big East tournament -- was an upset candidate. Big East supporters dreamed big. Eleven teams in the round of 32! An all-Big-East Final Four!

Sneak Peek: Game Predictions

Today's sneak peek gives you a preview of the new look and feel for our per-game predictions. There are a few changes to the table to better fit the look and feel of the new site and to convey the same info but with less information overload. Instead of listing the odds of victory next to each game, we're using a color-coding scheme where the likelihood of victory is related to the intensity of the background color.

Home			Visitors			Home			Visitors
13	Arizona	36	28	Oregon St.	30	8	Arizona	35	36	Oregon St.	21
18	Arkansas	38	44	Texas A&M	32	23	Arkansas	38	51	Texas A&M	24
98	Ball St.	31	101	Western Michigan	29	99	Ball St.	31	111	Western Michigan	20
56	Baylor	30	31	Texas Tech	34	38	Baylor	29	37	Texas Tech	28
3	Boise St.	46	96	Toledo	22	11	Boise St.	52	100	Toledo	7
50	BYU	36	86	SDSU	27	64	BYU	34	79	SDSU	21
58	Fresno St.	41	78	Hawaii	34	66	Fresno St.	38	83	Hawaii	27
21	California	33	53	UCLA	26	15	California	34	46	UCLA	20
34	Cincinnati	40	106	Miami-OH	24	50	Cincinnati	41	104	Miami-OH	13
104	FIU	41	116	Western Kentucky	32	101	FIU	34	113	Western Kentucky	24
6	Florida	34	11	LSU	27	6	Florida	27	12	LSU	20
40	Georgia Tech	34	73	Virginia	27	47	Georgia Tech	28	32	Virginia	24
37	Georgia	34	47	Tennessee	29	21	Georgia	31	48	Tennessee	20
49	Houston	34	43	Mississippi St.	32	61	Houston	24	20	Mississippi St.	31
65	Iowa St.	27	15	Utah	34	59	Iowa St.	24	18	Utah	31
111	Kent St.	33	118	Akron	28	105	Kent St.	34	119	Akron	21
54	Kentucky	31	19	Auburn	35	49	Kentucky	21	17	Auburn	31
87	LA Tech	33	84	Utah St.	30	85	LA Tech	34	91	Utah St.	24
76	Louisville	36	107	Memphis	27	77	Louisville	35	109	Memphis	17
17	Miami-FL	35	23	Florida St.	30	13	Miami-FL	31	16	Florida St.	24
33	Michigan	35	38	Michigan St.	32	34	Michigan	34	41	Michigan St.	24
29	Missouri	35	75	Colorado	27	40	Missouri	31	58	Colorado	24
27	North Carolina	30	22	Clemson	29	22	North Carolina	28	30	Clemson	24
32	Nevada	43	119	SJSU	24	28	Nevada	55	116	SJSU	13
120	New Mexico St.	30	117	New Mexico	32	120	New Mexico St.	25	118	New Mexico	24
46	North Carolina St.	32	66	Boston College	27	52	North Carolina St.	31	62	Boston College	21
114	North Texas	33	99	Arkansas St.	35	114	North Texas	24	98	Arkansas St.	27
115	LA-Monroe	32	105	FL-Atlantic	34	112	LA-Monroe	28	NA	FL-Atlantic	27
74	Northern Ill.	33	70	Temple	31	87	Northern Ill.	21	56	Temple	31
59	Northwestern	31	67	Purdue	28	65	Northwestern	31	80	Purdue	21
35	Notre Dame	32	30	Pittsburgh	31	27	Notre Dame	28	33	Pittsburgh	21
5	Ohio St.	44	80	Indiana	24	7	Ohio St.	42	72	Indiana	17
93	Ohio	33	85	Bowling Green	31	96	Ohio	28	94	Bowling Green	24
14	Penn State	31	62	Illinois	22	14	Penn State	31	73	Illinois	13
26	South Carolina	24	1	Alabama	34	26	South Carolina	17	1	Alabama	27
51	South Florida	32	90	Syracuse	24	60	South Florida	31	82	Syracuse	17
72	SMU	36	60	Tulsa	35	NA	SMU	35	69	Tulsa	31
61	Southern Miss.	34	63	East Carolina	31	57	Southern Miss.	34	67	East Carolina	24
16	Stanford	38	20	USC	31	2	Stanford	34	25	USC	21
2	TCU	40	102	Wyoming	17	5	TCU	45	97	Wyoming	6
94	UTEP	39	103	Rice	33	92	UTEP	35	103	Rice	24
110	Tulane	29	89	Army	32	106	Tulane	24	86	Army	28
24	Air Force	38	108	Colorado St.	21	31	Air Force	35	110	Colorado St.	10
88	Vanderbilt	39	113	Eastern Michigan	26	75	Vanderbilt	42	117	Eastern Michigan	14
8	Virginia Tech	40	68	Central Michigan	24	9	Virginia Tech	35	70	Central Michigan	10
81	Wake Forest	29	45	Navy	32	45	Wake Forest	27	55	Navy	24
112	Washington St.	22	7	Oregon	45	102	Washington St.	10	3	Oregon	56
55	Washington	32	42	Arizona St.	30	35	Washington	31	39	Arizona St.	27
36	West Virginia	37	91	UNLV	25	42	West Virginia	38	89	UNLV	17
41	Wisconsin	35	64	Minnesota	29	44	Wisconsin	34	78	Minnesota	21

Key
Close game							Certain victory

Sneak Peek: Conference Projections

A new feature for next year will be projections for all 11 FBS conferences -- plus all the independent teams -- starting around week five. We'll include current and projected conference and overall standings, plus a breakdown of AdjO, AdjD, and AdjPace for each team. We'll update projected standings for four conferences each day on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and provide some commentary and insight about the remaining weeks.

ACC
Atlantic
Team	Conference		Overall		Adjusted
	Now	Projected	Now	Projected	Off.	Def.	Pace
Florida St. 24	4 - 1 0.800	6 - 3 0.667	5 - 2 0.714	8 - 5 0.615	25.4	17.1	163.4
Maryland 77	3 - 1 0.750	4 - 4 0.500	5 - 2 0.714	7 - 5 0.583	16.2	19.8	166.0
North Carolina St. 35	3 - 1 0.750	5 - 3 0.625	5 - 2 0.714	8 - 4 0.667	23.0	18.4	174.3
Clemson 20	2 - 3 0.400	4 - 4 0.500	3 - 4 0.429	6 - 6 0.500	20.9	13.8	165.5
Wake Forest 78	1 - 4 0.200	2 - 6 0.250	1 - 6 0.143	2 - 9 0.182	17.5	21.4	170.4
Boston College 67	1 - 4 0.200	3 - 5 0.375	2 - 5 0.286	5 - 7 0.417	15.5	16.5	164.1
Coastal
Team	Conference		Overall		Adjusted
	Now	Projected	Now	Projected	Off.	Def.	Pace
Virginia Tech 6	4 - 0 1.000	8 - 1 0.889	6 - 1 0.857	10 - 3 0.769	29.2	13.9	158.5
Georgia Tech 36	3 - 2 0.600	4 - 4 0.500	4 - 3 0.571	6 - 6 0.500	24.8	19.9	159.3
Miami-FL 14	3 - 2 0.600	5 - 3 0.625	4 - 3 0.571	7 - 5 0.583	22.9	13.4	170.4
North Carolina 32	2 - 2 0.500	4 - 4 0.500	4 - 3 0.571	7 - 5 0.583	21.7	15.8	159.0
Virginia 81	1 - 3 0.250	3 - 5 0.375	2 - 4 0.333	4 - 6 0.400	15.0	18.7	166.8
Duke 97	0 - 4 0.000	1 - 7 0.125	1 - 6 0.143	2 - 9 0.182	14.5	23.1	172.6
Projected records may not sum to total number of actual games due to rounding errors.

Sneak Peek: Top 25

A preview of our look for next year. We've redone the rankings to look a bit cleaner, and to include rankings for SOS, AdjO, AdjD, and AdjPace directly in the table. We're also going to use color-coding to indicate whether the data is coming from Justin's TFG system (blue) or Eddie's RBA algorithm (red). Feedback and comments are welcome.

Rank	+/-	Team	WinPct	SoS		Adjusted
						Off.		Def.		Pace
1	--	TCU	0.934	0.452	78	28.0	5	9.1	1	80.7	99
2	--	Boise St.	0.933	0.429	82	28.6	4	9.3	2	82.8	63
3	+1	Alabama	0.925	0.646	8	27.8	6	9.5	3	77.7	118
4	-1	Ohio St.	0.910	0.527	60	25.4	11	9.5	4	80.5	101
5	+1	Oregon	0.869	0.569	38	26.0	10	11.8	7	92.3	1
6	+2	Stanford	0.862	0.599	29	29.6	1	13.7	20	80.9	93
7	--	Oklahoma	0.853	0.602	23	23.4	20	11.2	5	91.8	2
8	-3	Virginia Tech	0.848	0.586	34	27.7	7	13.3	14	78.7	114
9	--	LSU	0.837	0.641	9	24.4	15	12.2	9	78.3	117
10	--	Auburn	0.833	0.662	3	29.1	2	14.9	28	83.4	55
11	+2	Florida	0.807	0.658	4	23.9	17	13.2	13	81.7	79
12	+3	Arkansas	0.800	0.658	5	27.2	8	15.2	31	84.2	45
13	-2	Iowa	0.798	0.564	40	21.1	29	11.7	6	80.8	97
14	--	Wisconsin	0.784	0.547	46	28.8	3	16.7	44	78.9	111
15	-3	Nebraska	0.780	0.507	66	22.2	22	13.0	12	80.1	105
16	+2	Florida St.	0.767	0.652	6	25.0	13	15.2	32	81.4	85
17	+4	Oklahoma St.	0.767	0.534	57	24.4	14	14.8	27	89.6	7
18	-1	Missouri	0.759	0.545	48	20.2	38	12.3	10	85.2	31
19	--	South Carolina	0.755	0.684	1	24.1	16	15.0	29	79.2	108
20	-4	West Virginia	0.750	0.537	55	18.9	49	11.9	8	81.4	86
21	+3	Notre Dame	0.733	0.599	28	19.6	42	12.8	11	84.7	36
22	-2	Utah	0.730	0.488	71	21.9	25	14.5	25	81.0	88
23	--	Georgia	0.716	0.616	17	25.0	12	16.9	47	77.2	119
24	+1	USC	0.710	0.591	33	21.9	24	15.1	30	84.0	47
25	-3	Miami-FL	0.705	0.633	13	19.3	45	13.4	17	85.8	29

New entries: none.

Dropped out: none.