The 'Cats as expected dropped as a result of their opening game loss to DePaul. Their rebound win over Pittsburgh the following Sunday impressed enough voters to keep them in for another week. The weekend loss to Cincinnati however should put them out of the poll this week. The Wildcats have some work ahead of them still.
My Big East Blogger Poll for this week:
1 - Georgetown
2 - Marquette
3 - Pittsburgh
4 - Connecticut
5 - Notre Dame
6 - Louisville
7 - West Virginia
8 - Villanova
9 - Providence
10 - Syracuse
11 - South Florida
12 - DePaul
13 - Cincinnati
14 - Seton Hall
15 - St. John's
16 - Rutgers
Player of the Week: Sam Young, Pittsburgh
Rookie of the Week: Austin Freeman, Georgetown
Who's Up...Who's Down...
The top quartile changed only a little. The top three continued to win (sometimes impressively...). Notre Dame, Saturday loss to Marquette was expected, but the margin gave me pause to think. There are few good alternatives choice for #4, as very few of the top half teams started cleanly. I am voting for Connecticut as the #4 team, as they beat the Johnnies pretty convincingly on Tuesday and then then dropped a 3 point road decision to #1 Georgetown on Saturday. The second quartile was shuffled quite a bit as I am still not certain how good (or bad...) a few of the teams really are. I dropped Villanova from #5 to #8, as it is clear the young Wildcats are not consistent enough to win on the road. They had two good opportunities for road wins and lost both. As the 3 point loss to Cincinnati on Satruday demonstrates, they don't seem to know how to finish a game yet. West Virginia's road losses to Notre Dame and (last week) to Louisville suggest the Mountaineers have the same problem. But since their wins are more impressive (and abundent...), I moved them ahead of the Wildcats. Syracuse is struggling again, their road losses to Cincinnati last Wednesday and then to West Virginia on Saturday leave me wonderig whether they will make the NCAAs this season. I cannot recall off the top of my head when Syracuse missed two consecutive NCAAa. The bottom quartile is settling a bit as St. John's and Rutgers are really struggling to keep up with the rest of the conference...
This week's OWs...
Austin Freeman of Georgetown had two very good 13 point outings last week. The first was a road game against DePaul and the second, on Saturday, against Connecticut. Freeman moved into the starting lineup just before the start of the Big East season, and has scored 13 points in each of the Hoyas' three Big East games so far. As for the Player of the Week, I voted for Sam Young of Pittsburgh. Young dropped 47 points on South Florida (a road game) and Seton Hall. For a team that is missing their distributor and a scorer in Levance Fields (and Mike Cook), Young, along with Ron Ramon (and freshman Bradley Wanamaker) are doing a terrific job filling in the gaps so far. The Panthers have a big test coming up this week as Georgetown visits tonight. Big Monday is back...
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