Blame me, says Mike Tranghese.
He's the one who drew up this season's Big East schedule on a piece of paper. Tranghese, the Big East's commissioner since 1990, didn't use a computer, a calculator or even a slide rule. He tackled the Big East's unbalanced schedule with pencils and two Big East colleagues, and what they came up with looks a lot more controversial now than it did in late June.
Connecticut is 5-0 and leads the East Division by two games. Syracuse, which suffered its first conference loss Tuesday night at Pittsburgh, is 5-1 and leads the West by a game.
|  | | The only time this season Preston Shumpert will shoot jumpers over Jonnie Selvie is during the Big East (or NCAA) tournaments. |
The division leaders don't play this season.
Oops.
My fault, says Tranghese.
"I'm going to be scrutinized by my membership," Tranghese says. "I make the schedule, and it's final -- coaches and athletic directors have no say. I'm sure they say I made a mistake on this one. I can tell you this won't be the last mistake I make, when trying to develop an unbalanced schedule."
Indeed, the Big East's biggest problem is in its very name: big. It's too big, or at least it's too big to have a perfect basketball schedule. The league uses an unbalanced schedule, meaning each team plays every division opponent twice, and four of the seven crossover opponents once. Every year, every team in the Big East will miss out on playing three conference foes during the regular season. This year happened to be the year for Connecticut to miss Syracuse, and vice versa.
My bad, says Tranghese.
"I have the authority to make any game I want for business reasons," he says. "If I thought Syracuse and Connecticut would have been leading their divisions (after five games), I'd have made it. Obviously that's not what I thought at the time. I think Syracuse, in my opinion, is a huge surprise. Nobody expected them to both be there. In trying to evaluate (the upcoming season) I made an incorrect evaluation. You can't have the same teams play every time, because everyone wants to play Georgetown, St. John's, Connecticut, Syracuse."
The Big East's size has forced Tranghese, a former chairman of the NCAA men's basketball committee, to read tea leaves. And this preseason, it was just too murky. Hence, the three West Division teams Connecticut won't play just happen to be the three teams currently sitting atop that division: Syracuse (5-1), Pittsburgh (5-2) and Notre Dame (2-2). Syracuse catches the same break, missing out on the top three (currently) teams in the East: UConn (5-0) Miami (4-2) and St. John's (4-2).
That gives the Huskies and Orangemen huge edges over division foes. In the East, current runner-up Miami does avoid Syracuse, but also misses out on the chance to play West Virginia (0-5) and Seton Hall (3-3). In the West, runner-up Pittsburgh avoids UConn, but also misses the chance to play the bottom two teams, Providence (1-4) and Virginia Tech (0-6).
Solutions? In 16 games, the only way each Big East team could play each other would require shortening most home-and-home series to one game per year -- and Tranghese says that's unacceptable.
"That's something we discussed," Tranghese says, "but we felt that made no sense because the only way we'll develop any kind of rivalries is to make certain some people are playing each other twice a year."
The league could go back to an 18-game schedule, meaning each team could play home-and-home within its division and still play all but one crossover opponent during the regular season. But that comes with an RPI cost.
"The more conference games you play, collectively you're going to hurt yourself with the RPI," Tranghese says.
Big East history in the NCAA Tournament reflects that. The NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985. Since then, in its eight seasons (1992-99) with an 18-game conference schedule, the Big East averaged 4.6 NCAA appearances per year. In nine seasons with a 16-game schedule, that number rises to 5.4.
Conference USA, with 14 teams and an unbalanced schedule, has a similar set-up. This season, for example, American Division leader Cincinnati doesn't play National contender Tulane. But the rest of the country doesn't take note if the Bearcats and Green Wave don't play.
Syracuse and UConn is a different story.
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Game of the Week
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Duke at Boston College
Thursday
Who's got the best backcourt in college basketball, anyway? Duke has Jason Williams and Chris Duhon. BC has Troy Bell and Ryan Sidney.
Temple at N.C. State
Saturday
As expected, the winner of this game moves closer to an NCAA Tournament berth. Not expected: only if it's N.C. State.
Dayton at Xavier
Saturday
Dayton wants more respect. Earn it right here.
Syracuse at Georgetown
Monday
Orangemen are trying to run away with the West. Hoyas can slow them down, if they find an antidote for Preston Shumpert.
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A 'Duke Hangover'?
On the surface, it looked like Maryland experienced another Duke hangover in its first game since losing 99-78 to the Blue Devils. In that first game, the Terps struggled to beat Clemson 99-90 at home.
But this was no Duke hangover. The Terps just happened to catch an unpredictable Clemson team -- which has lost to Yale and beaten top-10 Virginia in the same week -- on a day the Tigers were 15-for-28 from 3-point range. Maryland played exquisitely in some ways, committing just six turnovers and getting big games from Steven Blake (13 assists), Byron Mouton (14 points) and Juan Dixon (23 points), all of whom struggled against Duke.
"I was concerned for our players after expending so much emotion in the Duke game," said Terps coach Gary Williams, whose team went into a month-long tailspin after losing a regular-season game to Duke last season. "I thought we played tough."
Wake Forest gets its chance to bounce back from a tough Duke defeat tonight, when the Deacons play host to Maryland. It will be their first game since a 103-80 defeat Saturday at Duke.
"We'll be ready again," said Deacons forward Josh Howard. "This team has a lot of heart."
Hawks Flying in 'Rhythm'
Poor Saint Joseph's. The Hawks, a preseason top-10 team, lost their opener to Eastern Washington. In December they lost three straight games, including defeats to Georgia State and North Carolina. Poor Hawks. Maybe next year, huh?
Or maybe this year.
Look who's leading the Atlantic 10. Look who's the only unbeaten team in the conference's East Division. It's Saint Joseph's -- the little team that couldn't earlier this season, and now the little team that can't (lose).
Sophomore point guard Jameer Nelson has a theory for the Hawks' non-conference struggles, and it sounds good to us.
"The losses we had, we had breaks," he said after Saint Joseph's 92-74 victory against George Washington on Saturday. "Now that we're playing every two or three days, we're back in a rhythm."
Indeed, the Hawks' losses have come after extended layoffs. They lost the season opener, then dropped games in consecutive days in Charlotte, N.C., to Georgia State and North Carolina at the Tournament of Champions -- after an 11-day layoff. Their fourth loss, to Gonzaga, was their first game since the UNC loss nine days earlier.
Hawks coach Phil Martelli says the difference isn't the Hawks' busier schedule, but they're more generous attitude -- particularly leading scorer Marvin O'Connor, whose assists have nearly doubled in conference play.
"We're getting a lot of balance, getting four guys in double figures every night," Martelli said. "He's doing a good job of sharing the ball, and as a team we're doing a better job of spreading the ball around. Our assists are up, and our turnovers are down."
Around the East
The top rebounder in college basketball plays in the Northeast Conference. Quinnipiac junior forward Jeremy Bishop averages 13.1 rebounds per game, nearly one rebound ahead of Kansas' Drew Gooden (12.3).
Bishop has done this kind of thing before. Last season he was second in the country in rebounding for Champlain (Vt.) Junior College. His first Division I game was a 16-rebound effort against Holy Cross. His most recent outing was a 20-point, 17-rebound day against St. Francis. Bishop, who averages 12.7 points, has nine double-doubles in 14 games.
Good riddance to Miami Arena for the Hurricanes, whose stellar play this season has largely been ignored at home in large part because their gym is located in a depressed area of downtown Miami, nearly 30 minutes from their Coral Gables campus. The Hurricanes, who average barely 3,000 fans at Miami Arena, are scheduled to move into the 7,000-seat Ryder Center, on the UM campus, next year.
Big East freshman of the year Ryan Gomes? The 6-foot-7, 235-pound Gomes is averaging 16.4 points and 9.8 rebounds in Big East play, and shooting 60.3 percent overall from the field. His best game of the season was his latest, a 31-point, 12-rebound outing against Miami.
West Virginia has gone through a seven-game longest losing streak, its longest skid in 30 years, and will try to turn things around in the next several games without freshman Jonathan Hargett (knee). The Hargett-less Mountaineers dropped No. 7 to Seton Hall, 81-67, as fill-in point guard Jay Hewitt had no points, five assists and three turnovers in 27 minutes. Maybe during his forced break Hargett can learn something about shot selection; he averages 14.4 points, but shoots just 29 percent from the field, 28 percent from 3-point range.
North Carolina has offered a scholarship to 6-2 guard James Curry of Mebane, N.C., the first high school sophomore in memory -- and maybe ever -- to be offered a scholarship by the Tar Heels. Curry already has more 1,000 career points with 2½ seasons left to play, set the state freshman scoring record last year and has a high of 59 this season -- fifth ever in state history. Duke also is recruiting Curry, who has not committed to UNC.
Gregg Doyel covers college basketball for The Charlotte Observer and is a regular contributor for ESPN.com. He can be reached at gdoyel@charlotteobserver.com.
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