Big East isn’t much of a big deal this year

Color me critical, but I’m not sold on Big East basketball.

A conference widely touted as… Color me critical, but I’m not sold on Big East basketball.

A conference widely touted as the pre-eminent, premier league in Division I-A hoops, the Big East has delivered nothing but road-game goose eggs and home losses funnier than Fox hiring Dave Wannstedt as a halftime show analyst for its BCS bowl coverage.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m the first one on the Big East bandwagon every year. But two months into the young 2006-07 season, I’m starting to worry.

There are five ranked programs in Monday’s Associated Press Top 25 poll: No. 10 Pitt, No. 15 Marquette, No. 17 Notre Dame, No. 18 Connecticut and No. 25 West Virginia. Combined, these five schools are 59-7, with a grand total of eight wins against power conference schools.

West Virginia’s big victory came against Connecticut, so we’ll toss that one out. Pitt struck out twice on the road against No. 4 Wisconsin and No. 12 Oklahoma State, and its only big conference wins are against Florida State and Auburn.

Connecticut beat Mississippi, a team that boasts its marquee win as a 69-54 handling of Louisiana-Lafayette. Marquette beat Duke at a neutral site and lost to Wisconsin on its home floor, the same floor on which North Dakota State beat them.

Still, if you’re going to start counting wins against this year’s Duke team, then you might as well count Pitt’s 77-51 win over Florida A’M as a keynote victory as well. Duke might be ranked No. 5, but its two biggest wins are against Gonzaga, a team that seemingly hasn’t won since the preseason NIT, and Georgetown, a team whose fall from grace dropped quicker than Britney Spears’ kid.

Of the aforementioned ranked squads, only Notre Dame – the same team I ripped just weeks ago for complaining about its schedule – has a big win, beating then-No. 5 Alabama.

And yet, somehow, I’m not sold.

Could it be the Big East’s 5-13 record against ranked opponents? Or is it the 8-11 record against the Big Ten, Pac-10 and SEC teams? Notice I don’t count the 9-5 record against the ACC. Wins over North Carolina State, Wake Forest, Maryland, Miami (FL) and Boston College don’t count – sorry.

The 16 participating schools in the Big East love playing at home and hate going on the road. Take Syracuse, with its consensus No. 20 preseason ranking, as a fantastic example.

The Orange are 10-3 at home and 1-0 on the road. Who did they beat on the road? Canisius. Yeah, I thought you probably hadn’t heard of it. Canisius is about two and a half hours away from Syracuse when it isn’t snowing in upstate New York.

Syracuse’s home wins are definitely ones that will impress the Selection Committee come tournament time, what with victories over Penn, St. Francis (NY), Holy Cross, Colgate and, hold your breath, St. Bonaventure. Yet there are two games, both marked as losses, that shouldn’t surprise you – then-No. 22 Wichita State and then-No. 24 Oklahoma State.

The remainder of the Orange’s schedule features plenty of ranked teams: Pitt, Marquette, Notre Dame and Connecticut. Go figure – all of the ranked teams Syracuse plays are in its conference. Now, you are probably thinking, “Gee, they play easier non-conference schedules because the Big East beats up on their records – somebody has to get into the tournament out of the Big East.”

Good point, junior, but the Selection Committee would rather see, “Oklahoma State 95, Pitt 89, double overtime, in Oklahoma City” than “Connecticut 84, Coppin State 41, in Storrs, Conn.” Catch my drift?

Big East teams are tough to beat at home, as they sport a 137-29 record playing in front of their fans. The question is, have any Big East teams won any good home games?

DePaul beat Kansas at home, but Kansas lost to Oral Roberts. West Virginia and Cincinnati both beat North Carolina State at home, but the Wolf Pack are 1-4 against power conference teams.

Connecticut hasn’t even left its building for any non-conference games yet, and its only trip away from home resulted in a loss. If that’s the 18th-best team in the country, then I’m Tony Kornheiser.

The point is, all of us in the media prop up the Big East every year, and it’s usually spot on. The teams at the top of the pack are always some of the toughest contenders and hardest outs in the NCAA tournament.

But this season, it seems as though the Big East is having a down year. It may be too early, but when the conference is 5-13 against ranked opponents and 137 of the conference teams’ 161 wins are at home, that just screams overrated.

Jeff Greer prefers tough love for his favorite conference. E-mail him at jag59@pitt.edu.