Sunday, March 15, 2009

The Big East Superiority Con


Don't let the Big East and ESPN fool you. There is a better conference in the country or at least a valid argument disputing the Big East's supposed college basketball dominance.

I was sitting at a bar last night in Raleigh with some NC State grads. One was from Connecticut and a huge UConn fan. He was drooling over Okafor and Ben Gordon and I loudly stated that Gordon and Okafor sucked balls. To which we started a heated debate relating to GT, UConn, and the Big East vs. the ACC.

His argument was that the Big East is the greatest conference ever. Used the 6OT game as an example of its greatness. I was pretty plastered as was he so I just started running off random ACC-Big East matchups this season that the ACC won. I also reminded him that we dominated Thabeet in 2006 at the GA Dome.

The following string of words followed - please imagine a thick New Hampshire/Connecticut accent:

Husky fan: "You're about to receive a black eye."
Me: "I'm not really worried about that."
Husky fan: "Why not?"
Me: "Well, I'd say you weigh about 120-125 pounds and I weigh about 185."
Husky fan: "F*** you. I gotta smoke."

So he assessed the situation after I took my coat off and then he stormed off to apparently smoke. He had the makings of a coward so I wasn't terribly worried about a physical confrontation. Douchebag indicators = bandwagon UConn fan + terrible New England accent + drives a Pontiac Aztek.

Now, let's talk real numbers. ACC OOC record is 147-37 (79.9%) while the Big East was 171-59 (74.3%). The ACC was 7-6 versus the Big East in regular season play. We'll see come tourney time. I'm sure the Big East will send a lot of teams for the pure hype factor but I wouldn't be surprised to see more ACC in the Sweet 16 this year just for the fact that our top 5-6 teams are really deep.

Any thoughts on the Big East or ACC? I personally have hated the Big Least since2004 for the way the Big Least treated BC in its last season.