Lieberman: Big East overrun with upsets last week

Holy upset, Batman! I take one week off, and all hell breaks loose in Big East… Holy upset, Batman! I take one week off, and all hell breaks loose in Big East basketball.

Four of the top-five teams in the Big East standings lost last week. That means with more upsets bound to happen, major shifts will occur before teams sniff the Big East championship coming on March 9.

Now, every matchup is huge leading up to the postseason tournament. Unless an implosion for the ages happens, Syracuse and Villanova look safe atop the Big East standings. At 11-2 in conference play, they’ll be sure to get double byes in the Big East championship.

The outlook gets a lot more unclear after those two. West Virginia (9-4), Pitt (8-4), Georgetown (8-5), Louisville (8-5) and Marquette (7-5) are all battling for third and fourth place. The difference between fourth and fifth in the Big East is an extra day of rest come championship time.

Even some middle and lower teams, such as South Florida, Seton Hall, Cincinnati and Connecticut are fighting to get wins before the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee makes its picks.

It’s simple — every matchup is now much more important.

This is one of the best times to follow Big East basketball. Every year the late-season upsets always spark debates on the depth of the conference. For my money, the fact that basement teams such as Rutgers and Connecticut can beat top-10 teams is a testament to the league’s strength at the bottom, not its puniness at the top.

Take Louisville for instance, which nobody wants to play right now. The Cardinals are easily the hottest team in the Big East. Sunday, they dispatched Syracuse 66-60 on the road and survived at Notre Dame in double overtime with a 91-89 victory Wednesday.

Louisville’s amazing turnaround, from a 4-4 Big East record and a 19-point blasting by St. John’s last Thursday night, is incredible. Once a favorite to win the Big East, Louisville was forgotten once it started losing. Yet a mediocre team by Big East standards now looks like it could tussle with any team in the country.

Tip-Ins:

This space is usually devoted to quick bits around the Big East. Instead, I’ll digress for once. NBC shouldn’t have showed the tragic death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili during its Vancouver Winter Olympics coverage. My jaw hit the floor when NBC decided to open Friday’s Olympics coverage with the video of Kumaritashvili’s horrific crash. Showing a man launching off a track travelling 90 mph and striking an unprotected steel beam is not good television. In NBC’s defense, Brian Williams did warn viewers that “the pictures are very tough for some people to watch.” That was before NBC showed the video in slow motion, pictures of Kumaritashvili’s bloody corpse and then the video two more times. For the sake of good ethics, we can be spared the TV tabloid material repeated until the shock value forces us to watch the Olympics.

Back to basketball, how did Notre Dame replace senior Luke Harangody and his 24.1 points per game against Louisville? Notre Dame caught fire from the perimeter and got balanced scoring from typically unproductive sources. The Irish shot percent from behind the arc as a team. Against the Cardinals, junior Tim Abromaitis chipped in 29, just two shy of his season high. Usually a passer, senior Tory Jackson also added 19 points for the Irish. Just imagine if they all score this way once Harangody comes back.

Awards:

Big East Player of the Week:

Scottie Reynolds, Villanova – Night in and night out, the senior brings his best game to the arena. Reynolds averaged 21.5 points per game last week in two wins over West Virginia and Providence.

Big East Team of the Week:

Rutgers – Consecutive wins against Georgetown and DePaul could have saved the job of Scarlet Knights coach Fred Hill. It might not be long before he eventually loses his job, but you have to respect a team for playing that hard for their coach.

Big East Matchups to Watch:

Villanova at Pitt, Sunday: Pitt is back home for the Wildcats, who return after a stunning loss to Connecticut. The overall theme of this one will be which team forces the other into its game. Will Pitt rely on post players to play a half-court game, or will Villanova force the Panthers to run with them and play at a faster tempo.

No. 6 West Virginia at Connecticut, Monday: The wildly inconsistent Huskies are desperate for a win. West Virginia is on upset alert in this one because it’s on the road and against a team needing a win.

Who’s Hot:

Ashton Gibbs, Pitt – Gibbs averaged 22.0 points and five 3-point field goals per game in Pitt’s 2-0 week. He scored 24 points, including the tying 3-pointer in regulation, in a 98-95 triple-overtime win against West Virginia.

Who’s Cold:

Notre Dame – Consecutive losses to St. John’s and Louisville hurt. So does not having Harangody in the lineup. He’s expected to come back for the team’s home game against Pitt.