Published: April 03, 2009 10:31 pm      

VELAZCO: Big East: they eat their own

Big fish thrive, minnows swim upstream in 16-team league

I’ve been kicking this one around for a few months:

Is it better for the Big East to be so large?

About six weeks ago I was pretty sure it was a bad idea. Now that there are two teams about to play in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament semifinals, I’m not so certain anymore.

The pros are pretty obvious: the 16-team league got seven teams in the tournament (so did the Big Ten), five into the Sweet 16 and has Villanova and Connecticut playing today. They’re in opposite semifinals so there’s the chance of an all-Big East championship on Monday.

The league has so many ambitious contenders that top programs get tested more regularly than the top schools in other leagues did. It’s got to make the best of them stronger, and expose the flaws of the rest.

Perhaps because of the league’s geographic location in the NBA-oriented East, or maybe just by chance, the Big East seems to be setting the tone on increasingly physical play at the top of college hoops. It’s hard for the rest of the world to keep up.

As long as referees find that physical play OK, the Big East has the upper hand when all the nation’s top contenders come together in the tournament.

(Is it any wonder that the Big Ten’s most physical team, Michigan State, is the league’s last survivor? The Spartans are one of a few teams outside the Big East that are prepared to sweat and bleed as much as the eastern heavyweights.)

All that is good for the Big East. The league is getting a lot of teams in the tourney and making deep runs when there.

Yet the cons of a 16-team league still weigh heavily.

For all the contenders that jostle atop the league, there are losers that never get their heads above water (Rutgers, I’m talking to you, and you too South Florida). What’s in it for them?

Well, money’s in it for them because all that NCAA money filters down to all the league schools. So yeah, that’s something, but at some point, being a perennial bottom feeder has got to get old.

The other key problem is that some good teams will take a bunch of losses and get left out of the tournament. Notre Dame is a perfect example.

I’m not arguing the Irish should have been in the NCAA tourney. They didn’t set the world on fire. They weren’t the most consistent and relied on bullish Luke Harangody to do too much, but they weren’t so bad as to take an epic losing streak either. Yet in that murderers’ row of a league that’s what happened midway through the conference season. That plunge down the standings put Notre Dame in a hole it never climbed out of.

Notre Dame’s season unraveled in a seven-game losing streak against six league teams, then Pac-10 power UCLA. In order, those losses were against Louisville, Syracuse, Connecticut, Marquette, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and UCLA. Of that bunch, only Cincy didn’t make the NCAA field and four made the Sweet 16.

The Irish finally broke the skid with a 33-point demolition of Louisville.

Were the Irish really as bad as a seven-game skid looked? I doubt it. It took reaching the final four of the NIT tournament to show that Notre Dame was pretty good after all.

It’s not like the Irish are alone. That’s going to happen just about any season in the Big East. Marquette closed its season with four straight losses — against UConn, Louisville, Pitt and Syracuse — though the Golden Eagles still made the NCAAs.

Over time, some programs will stay at the top, some will move in and out and some decent teams will be left out along with the dregs. If Notre Dame, or any team (Providence, Cincinnati) finds itself consistently on the outside looking in, despite working hard and playing pretty good ball, when does that get old?

Notre Dame isn’t destined to play in the NIT for all eternity. But Harangody is a junior and he could easily leave for the NBA. If he does, it won’t be easier for the Irish next season.

Remember when the WAC expanded to outrageous girth, then imploded under its own weight? The WAC blew up to 16 schools in 1996, but by 1999, eight of those schools — including seven league stalwarts from before expansion — seceded to form the Mountain West.

The Big East is great for UConn and Pitt and Louisville because if they can stay at the top of such a strong league, great NCAA seeds and deep tourney runs await them.

But at what cost?

Wonder what St. John’s fans think. Or DePaul fans. Remember when those teams mattered?

Tribune sportswriter Pedro Velazco can be reached by phone at (765) 454-8572 or by e-mail at pedro.velazco@kokomotribune.com