Coaches react to 3 Big East teams in the tournament
While the UConn Huskies earned the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament, the rest of the Big East wasn’t as blessed by the Selection Committee.
Marquette and Creighton were the only other Big East members to earn NCAA Tournament bids, while Seton Hall, St. John’s, Villanova, and Providence found themselves on the outside looking in. Coaches around the league were not pleased.
St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino called the NET rankings “fraudulent.”
“I think the analytics are bullsh-t,” Providence head coach Kim English said.
Maybe he has a point.
UConn head coach Dan Hurley was a bit more diplomatic.
“A little embarrassed for the league,” he said on Sunday. “It just becomes one of those things where you’ll hear from the Selection Committee [about NET or KenPom]…the whole thing is kind of a shell game.”
Hurley explained his support for Seton Hall and Providence as teams that seemed, to him, deserving to be in the tournament. He was surprised that St. John’s was so far from the cut line.
Though UConn fans may not care about the fate of their enemies in the league. This has a direct impact on the UConn athletic department’s finances and the league’s reputation, which is now tied to UConn’s reputation.
On top of that, NCAA Tournament wins lead to a payout for the league which every team shares evenly. The Big East is also in the midst of negotiations for a new TV contract; the presence of better teams and more tournament-caliber teams will be helpful for the ultimate goal of getting paid more.
Marquette landed the two-seed in the South region, while Creighton received the third-seed in the Midwest.
Marquette opens with Western Kentucky on Friday at 2:00 p.m. on TBS, so the Golden Eagles will be playing when the Huskies tip off in Brooklyn at 2:45 p.m. on CBS.
If they win, Shaka Smart’s squad will face the winner between 7-seed Florida and the winner of a Colorado-Boise State play-in game. Houston is the top seed in this bracket while No. 3 Kentucky and No. 4 Duke round out the South region’s top four.
Creighton faces Akron at 1:30 p.m. on Thursday on TNT. With a win, the Bluejays would take on the winner between 7-seed South Carolina and 11-seed Oregon. Purdue is the top seed in their bracket while Tennessee is No. 2 and Kansas is No. 4.