Experience and Close Games

Definitions and Methods
2009 was not notable for close games, at least not until the post season. A "close game" is one decided by 5 points or less. The 5 point margin suggests that the decision could have turned on 2 or fewer possessions -- a game that was probably settled in the last minute or so. Who would be more likely to play close games? A team with a bad record (like Notre Dame back in 2007)? I sorted the conference by percentage of the team's schedule that contained close games...

	Record			% of	Exp.
Team	W	L	Pct	Sch	Yrs
Seton Hall	7	4	0.636	0.344	1.65
Rutgers	5	6	0.455	0.344	1.39
Villanova	7	2	0.778	0.237	2.04
Marquette	4	4	0.500	0.229	2.45
Georgetown	1	6	0.143	0.226	1.11
DePaul	4	3	0.571	0.212	1.20
West Virginia	3	4	0.429	0.200	1.26
South Florida	1	5	0.167	0.194	1.58
Syracuse	5	2	0.714	0.184	1.65
Providence	3	3	0.500	0.182	2.53
Cincinnati	4	1	0.800	0.156	1.29
Louisville	4	1	0.800	0.135	1.72
Notre Dame	3	1	0.750	0.111	2.48
St. John's	3	0	1.000	0.088	0.86
Connecticut	2	0	1.000	0.056	2.20
Pittsburgh	1	1	0.500	0.056	1.94
Overall	57	43	0.570	0.187

The table shows the team's record in close games, the percentage of the schedule that involved close games and lastly, Ken Pomeroy's Experience Level, a stat in which he combines minutes played with class. The Overall line sums wins, losses calculates the winning percentage and the close games as a percentage of all games played. [Note the winning percentage is > .500 because I have included all games -- OOC, conference & post season -- for each team]

Did "not very good teams" play more close games? Well, yes...and no. True, Seton Hall and Rutgers did have the most close games, about 1/3 of their schedule was decided by 5 points or less, but Villanova and Marquette, two teams that finished near the top of the conference were just behind. That set of two paired teams provide an interesting snapshot on their seasons, relative to each other. In close games Seton Hall pulled out over 60% of them, while Rutgers could not break even, a capsule statement of their respective seasons and records. The same holds for Villanova and Marquette. Many had those two teams in a virtual tie in the Big East standings going into the season, but the Wildcats held a very healthy margin in the close games. The Golden Eagles stood at 50% (four of those games occurred after Dom James ended his season with an injury; Marquette went 1-3 in those games...another effect of losing the senior guard?). While Connecticut and Pittsburgh, two 1st quartile teams had the fewest close games (Pittsburgh's in particular, were badly timed), but St. John's and Notre Dame, two teams that finished in the bottom half of the conference played only a single close game more than UConn and Pitt.

The two "losingest" teams, Georgetown and South Florida really caught my eye. Among teams that had 20% or more of their schedule decided by 5 points or less, those two had strikingly poor winning percentages. While the folks over at the Hoya Prospectus Blog have examined the Georgetown season in detail in an attempt to construct a narrative of the 2009 season, I have not seen a post that explains this abnormally low winning percentage, though a post on experience discussed overall performance (and concluded it was not a decisive factor). If Villanova is an outlier (on the high side), those two were clear outliers on the low side. Ironically one of Villanova's close losses and Georgetown's single close game win -- was the 2/28 game played at the Wachovia.

Learn Anything in the School of Hard Knocks?
Georgetown was one of the "younger" teams in the Big East. Was their bad run (as suggested by a few fans & examined in depth by statistical analysis) a product of their youth? The Hoya Prospectus Blog (see above) says "no", but my question is more specific -- was youth a factor when the game was close? Looking at all of the Big East teams (same set of games), for each close game, I compared the experience-level of the two squads to determine if the "more experienced" squad won. Going back to each team, I reclassified each close game according to whether the result was consistent with the experience level of the two teams -- ie "did the more experienced team win?". The survey yields a few interesting nuggets...

	W/L vs Exp			Exp.
Team	Ag.	Dis.	Pct.	Yrs.
Syracuse	7	0	1.000	1.65
Connecticut	2	0	1.000	2.20
Pittsburgh	2	0	1.000	1.94
West Virginia	6	1	0.857	1.26
Cincinnati	4	1	0.800	1.29
Notre Dame	3	1	0.750	2.48
Rutgers	8	3	0.727	1.39
Seton Hall	8	3	0.727	1.65
Louisville	3	2	0.600	1.72
DePaul	4	3	0.571	1.20
Georgetown	4	3	0.571	1.11
Villanova	5	4	0.556	2.04
Marquette	4	4	0.500	2.45
Providence	3	3	0.500	2.53
South Florida	2	4	0.333	1.58
St. John's	0	3	0.000	0.86
Overall	65	35	0.650

I sorted the data by the "expectations percentage" and included Pomeroy's experience level as a point of comparison. Hmmm, these results look pretty interesting. True Connecticut and Pittsburgh offer a sample too small to draw conclusions, but Syracuse and West Virginia look pretty conclusive. Seton Hall and Rutgers show consistent results (even though their won/loss records in close games were very different). Even down-on-their-luck DePaul and contrarian Georgetown show reults that agreed more than disagreed with the experience expectation. Looking at the bottom of the table, St. John's and South Florida appear to be counter intuitive (but consider that two of St. John's counter-expectation wins came versus Georgetown...that team again).

Marquette and Providence came at .500, both for winning percentage in close games (4-4, 3-3 respectively) and for "experience result consistency". They caught my eye because they are two of the more experienced teams in the conference -- Marquette was ranked #1 in the Big East according to Pomeroy, while Providence was #3, behind Notre Dame. Common sense (and this data) suggest they underperformed. Both also had 1st year coaches, relatively inexperienced 1st year coaches. Buzz Williams and Keno Davis each logged a single season as head coach before coming into the Big East.

Guest Contributor Ray Floriani: Big East Floor Efficiency

by Ray Floriani

SOUTH ORANGE, NJ:  In the late Nineties, David Claerbaut wrote a book "The NBA Analyst" (Taylor Publishing). At the time I hoped it would be an annual publication along the lines of what we have for major league baseball (Baseball Prospectus and others). It was not to be Claerbaut was "one and done" but not without giving some interesting insight. One area he touched upon was floor efficiency which dealt with steals, assists and turnovers. Claerbaut felt this statistic or number, "...reflects the overall floor game, offense and defense".f Claerbaut found the top nine teams in floor efficiency for 1998 had winning records. The Chicago Bulls, the '98 NBA champions, were fourth with a .692 mark. Claerbaut in fact found floor efficiency had an .822 correlation rate to winning.

The formula:

Floor EFF = (steals + assists)/ (steals + assists + turnovers)

We decided to look at the floor efficiency of the Big East. Only the conference regular season games were utilized in computations.

		Floor
	Team	Efficiency	Won-Lost
1.	Marquette	.686	12-6
2.	Notre Dame	.673	8-10
3.	Pitt	.669	15-3
4.	West Virginia	.645	10-8
5.	Louisville	.642	16-2
5.	Seton Hall	.642	7-11
7.	Syracuse	.623	11-7
8.	Villanova	.622	13-5
9.	Cincinnati	.616	8-10
10.	Providence	.615	10-8
11.	UConn	.611	15-3
12.	South Florida	.599	4-14
13.	Georgetown	.589	7-11
14.	DePaul	.587	0-18
15.	St. John's	.545	6-12
16.	Rutgers	.521	2-16

A few notes and comments:
* Notre Dame. Not a huge surprise but a succinct reminder, floor efficiency is desirable but that alone doesn't guarantee a winning campaign.
* Rutgers. Again not a surprise. It was just a long hard Winter in Piscataway for Fred Hill 7 company.
* What about Villanova? This is a ?Nova site after all. The Wildcats finished mid-pack in the ratings. Jay Wright?s club had 147 steals (tied with Seton Hall for second best in conference behind Louisville). The turnovers (14 per outing) were the area that kept their floor efficiency from being better.
* Marquette led the way in floor efficiency with a perimeter oriented group. But it wasn't simply their style of play. Marquette was not just perimeter oriented in philosophy but very good in execution. They had a strong cast that had nearly five more assists than turnovers (15.1 assists, 10.6 turnovers) per game. Defensively they weren?t too shabby, finishing just a steal behind Villanova for fourth in the Big East.
* Surprise? Seton Hall. Maybe it shouldn?t be that much of an eye opener. Hall was very perimeter oriented and did record seven conference wins. Defensive thefts, as noted tied for second in conference, and a favorable assist/turnover mark (233 to 212) greatly aided Bobby Gonzalez's club.
* Disappointing? UConn. Huskies were fourth from the bottom in conference steals with just 96. That went a long way toward a floor efficiency rating that trailed several teams sub .500 in Big East play. UConn?s situation serves as an example: a favorable floor efficiency is something all coaches certainly covet, but it is not a definitive guarantee to winning. You need an inside game featuring rebounders, interior defenders and shot blockers. UConn had just that and was strong enough to overcome and shortcoming provided by not generating a great deal of steals.

Bloggers Roundtable -- On Second Thought...

Pico over at the East Coast Bias Blog organized an end of the season round table for bloggers from 14 of the 16 Big East members (Cincinnati & South Florida do not have many/any? bloggers). Pico sent out a 6 question questionnaire the results of which he published in "Big East Bloggers Roundtable: Pre-Conference Tourney Q and A". I enjoyed participating, and hopefully a number of readers will get over to East Coast Bias to catch all of the responses. After reading through Pico's compilation, I had a few more thoughts (I know, I had a lot of thoughts already...)...

Not asked, but volunteered here -- my vote for POY is Jerel McNeal. Granted you can make an argument for Blair (John Gasaway over at Basketball Prospectus did earlier today...), but consider the Haragody/Hibbert precedent which practically dictates that an underclassman named as POY should jump to the NBA in the off season. McNeal has performed well all season long, has clearly helped his team improve over last season and is a senior (which in my opinion, encourages the underclassmen to stay and hone their game before jumping to the league). For me, the 1st Pittsburgh -- Connecticut, in which Blair completely dominated Thabeet in the paint (that flip-over-the-back move appeared to intimidate the Husky center) ended the UConn's Thabeet-for-POY boomlet (Big East or elsewhere).

I believe the "OY"s should come from upper division teams, or provide the kind of help that markedly improves their team's standing from the previous season. They should be a reason why the team did well. And that's the problem with Mike Rosario and Greg Echenique -- Rutgers was worse this year than last year. Rutgers won 3 conference games in 2008; the Scarlet Knights won 2 in 2009. Their offensive/defensive efficiency difference was -0.170 in 2008, it was -0.146 in 2009. That is an "improvement" of 0.024. I don't put this at Mike Rosario's feet, clearly he is a talented player and deserves to be named to the All-Rookie Team. And should the Scarlet Knights learn to win next season (or the one after), Rosario can share the rewards (assuming he contributes) consistent with that accomplishment. The 2009 edition of the Rutgers men's basketball team has not shown that it is better than the 2008 edition.

Most overrated home venue -- The RAC at Rutgers. I know a few other bloggers had other overrated venues (the Carrier Dome seemed to draw a lot of attention...), but RAC has not provided any advantage for Rutgers in a long time (5 years?) -- this is not a one (a two) season phenomena. The table I put together to illustrate the point makes a pretty strong case. Those teams have been at the bottom of the conference for a few seasons...

School	W	L	Pct.
DePaul	10	16	0.385
South Florida	8	17	0.308
Rutgers	5	21	0.192

As recently as 2002 the RAC was touted as house of horrors by sports writers. By contrast St. John's, who finished #13 this season, had a 14-12 0.538 home record over the past 3 seasons -- and the Johnnies split their home court between Carnesecca Arena in Queens and Madison Square Garden.

Big East at the Eighth Poll

Through Friday, every team played at least 7 games, while three have posted their first 9. Every member of the conference should have 9 in the book by the end of this week. So how is the season shaping up?

	Big East			Overall
	W	L	Pct.	W	L	Pct.
Louisville	8	0	1.000	17	3	.850
Marquette	7	0	1.000	18	2	.900
Connecticut	8	1	.889	19	1	.950
Pittsburgh	7	2	.778	19	2	.905
Providence	6	2	.750	14	6	.700
Villanova	4	3	.571	16	4	.800
Syracuse	5	4	.556	17	5	.773
West Virginia	4	4	.500	15	6	.714
Cincinnati	4	4	.500	14	7	.667
Georgetown	3	5	.375	12	7	.632
Notre Dame	3	6	.333	12	8	.600
Seton Hall	2	6	.250	11	9	.550
St. John's	2	6	.250	11	9	.550
South Florida	2	6	.250	7	13	.350
Rutgers	0	8	.000	9	12	.429
DePaul	0	8	.000	8	13	.381

Pleasant Surprises
The conference is tough on first year coaches, especially those coming in from mid-major conferences; the only really good first season lately that I can remember was the one posted by John Thompson III. So I was not that optimistic about the prospects for Marquette and Providence in the face of their HC turnovers in the off season. I rated both about a quartile lower than I thought they would have done with their original coaches. Looks like I was wrong as Buzz Williams and Keeno Davis have their squads off to very good starts (despite the Friars' loss to Connecticut Saturday). Marquette, a bit shaky back in December (watching the Warriors versus the Vols in the BE-SEC Challenge was painful) is on track to get two byes in the Big East Tournament. Other surprises (albeit to a lesser degree) include Connecticut, which I thought would be 1st quartile, but not the #1 ranked team in the country (if the voters cooperate on Monday) & Pittsburgh, which also topped the D1 rankings for a week or so last month.

No Surprises
At the top of the conference, the nod goes to Louisville, and in the 2nd quartile, to Villanova, West Virginia and Syracuse. The Orange Nation might have expected more from their team, especially after the high rankings in the D1 polls (and the fast start to the Big East season), but they have hit a glitch or two in the past week, including another injury to Andy Rautins (principal outside threat whose absence last season reduced their offense to an inside game) and a 1-4 skid during a challenging portion of their schedule. I had pegged Georgetown to finish in the 3rd quartile and they are sitting there now complements of a five game losing streak. Observer columnist Howard Megdal ruminates on the Hoya's (and the Irish -- more on them in the next section...) in his Big East Bubble Teams column of 1/31. Early season (OOC) success combined with MSM acclimation may have raised expectations for the Hoya faithful, but after the cheering subsides, the Hoyas have a young, uninitiated front court (ie Monroe & Vaughn) combined with a young point guard. The bumps were bound to come. The major part of the 4th quartile (South Florida, St. John's and DePaul) are about where they where I suspected they would be. The Blue Demon's collapse this season was a bit more extreme than I expected. There is a good deal of season left, but Coach Wainwright has to be feeling the heat right now (especially with the loss to Rutgers, not noted in my standings, on Saturday).

Unpleasant Surprises
Just when I finally got on the Irish band wagon the wheels fall off. For the past two seasons I have projected the Irish somewhere in the #9-#12 spots (a 3rd quartile finish). And twice they proved me wrong by finding a defense (which I dubbed the "Just Enough Defense"...) which allowed their potent and high speed offense to turn games into blowouts, rather than road races. When Rob Kurz graduated someone should have checked his bags before he left campus. He seems to have packed up the defense and taken it with him. Luke Harangody would benefit from a second body down low to challenge defenders to block out. Challenging Notre Dame for most disappointing (for my projections...) is Rutgers. Granted my projection for the Scarlet Knights was modest enough -- the 3rd quartile as opposed to a 4th quartile finish. But having waded 9 games into the season to log their first win (against DePaul no less) is not a good sign for their prospects. They lost the first round of The Battle of New Jersey on Thursday night (on the road), but have a second try against Seton Hall in a week or so. They also host fellow 4th quartile dweller South Florida in late February. Those two may be their best prospects for a win in the second half of the season.

Pythagoras Says
Ken Pomeroy prefers to use overall points for and against when using the pythagorean winning percentage formula for projecting wins and finishes. It makes sense for the season, but given the Big East's dominance in D1 (indeed a "more wins than losses" distortion occurs with respect to most of the power conferences...), so using conference results only provides a less distorted apportionment of the wins/losses. The results through Thursday evening yield a season ending standing that looks like:

	W	L
Louisville	16	2
Connecticut	15	3
Marquette	15	3
Pittsburgh	14	4
Providence	12	6
West Virginia	12	6
Syracuse	11	7
Villanova	11	7
Georgetown	7	11
Notre Dame	7	11
USF	6	12
Cincinnati	5	13
Seton Hall	4	14
DePaul	3	15
Rutgers	3	15
St. John's	3	15

Little here that is especially startling, given the 1st half, but seeing Connecticut finish 2nd and Georgetown and Notre Dame finish with double digit losses seems overly pessimistic for all three schools. Cardinal fans may disagree with the first note, and while over reliance on freshmen and no defense may seem daunting challenges at this point, neither is impossible to fix. There is still time.

Half Time Observations
1. The teams making the best showings so far feature upper classmen leaders. The juniors & seniors have (with an exception or two) pushed the freshmen to the side. Consider the "underperformance" of several of the teams that rely heavily on freshmen/transfers to step into leadership roles with graduations and transfers. Are those long learning curves really that surprising, especially given the number of very experienced squads featured this season?
2. Defense seems to dominate play so far. The Marquette -- Georgetown game on Saturday is a notable exception as each team registered efficiency ratings > 1.10 points per possession (ppp, sometimes designated ORtg and DRtg), the Hoyas registering a very respectable 1.16, but falling to the Warriors because they could not stop Matthews, McNeal (and Hayward) as those three shot/scored to the tune of 1.33, one of the highest for a game I have seen in the Big East this season.

Thoughts About Post Season Teams
1. Notre Dame's Luke Harangody may take the POY award on inertia. He is after all, having a very good individual season and got the nod in the preseason. But Marquette's Jerel McNeal is having one of those seasons. The senior has posted a series of eye-catching performances, and unlike the Irish, the Golden Eagles (thinking of Marquette's three senior guards, how could anyone seriously not think of Marquette as the Warriors?) are among the elites in the conference this season, and McNeal is a big reason why they are there.
2. Preseason ROYs were Samardo Samuels and Greg Monroe. No one has emerged to challenge those two, though Samuels may have the advantage now with the Hoyas in a slump. The All Rookie Team may well be front court (#5) heavy as Monroe, Samuels, Rutger's Greg Echenique, Cincinnati's Yancy Gates and South Florida's Gus Gilchrist have all carved out large amounts of playing time as starters and contributors. The strongest candidates among the forwards (but not centers...) include West Virginia's Devon Ebanks and Louisville's Jared Swopshire. Late bloomers among the freshmen frontcourt players include Syracuse's Kris Joseph, Georgetown's Jason Clark, Louisville's Terrence Jennings, Georgetown's Henry Sims and South Florida's Eladio Espinosa, all of whom have begun to find their way into the regular rotation. Espinosa has logged several starts as USF coach Stan Heath juggles the lineup in the face of injuries. The best back court candidates include Connecticut's Kemba Walker, Rutger's Mike Rosario, St. John's Quincy Roberts and West Virginia's Darryl Bryant, the last two pressed into duty when injuries sidelined their squad's starters. A few contributors who may get votes include South Florida's Justin Leemow, St. John's Tyshwan Edmondson, Cincinnati's Dion Dixon, DePaul's Jeremiah Kelly and Pitt's two freshmen guards, Ashton Gibbs and Travon Woodall.
3. Villanova's Dante Cunningham has had a tremendous half and has garnered a comment or two in the ink and electronic media. If he maintains the momentum he will most likely play himself onto one of the three All Big East teams.

Thoughts on Villanova's 2009 Big East Match-ups

I ran across a simple comparison method used by the bloggers over at Cracked Sidewalks to quickly analyze Marquette's Big East slate for next season (thereby declaring the Warriors had a favorable schedule...). The Big East Report Blog used a similar method which created a conference-wide average for the schedules, and individual "scores" for each team...
1. Divide the Big East into quartiles (1^st -- top, 2^nd -- with 1^st that makes "upper division", 3^rd -- 9 through 12 finishers and 4^th -- 13 through 16 finishers).
2. The quartiles (with your own team in place) will give a hint as to how to triage the conference. There are those teams you won't beat, either at home or on the road (top level); those teams you won't lose to (bottom level -- ha ha, we saw how that worked last season...); those teams which you can most likely beat if you played them at home.
3. Factor the mirror (home-n-away) series games/opponents. The conference generally tries to allocate a top, middle and bottom level opponent to each team. While considering historical rivalries, television revenues and strength of schedule for both top and bottom level teams. In past off seasons the conference coaches were asked about where they thought their teams would place in the conference and where other teams might place.
While a number of very early preseason conference rankings have been published at virtually all of the electronic media sites covering D1 basketball, the consensus appears to be that few (any?) teams will move up or down even a quartile over where they finished, going into next season.

Based on last season's regular season finish, the quartile breakdown looks like this (alpha order within quartile):
First Quartile -- Connecticut, Georgetown, Louisville, Notre Dame.
Second Quartile -- Marquette, Pittsburgh, Villanova, West Virginia.
Third Quartile -- Cincinnati, Providence, Seton Hall, Syracuse.
Fourth Quartile -- DePaul, Rutgers, St. John's, South Florida.

Of course an injury, late hire/fire staff shakeup and academics, etc. can significantly change any team's roster or staff, and that in turn can affect how they perform next season. The latest round (post NBA draft) of preseason &quor;rankings" project between 1 - 3 Big East teams in the Top 10, 4 - 6 in the Top 20 and something like 7 - 9 in the Top 25 to Top 50. It is always the same 7 - 9 teams, and individually each appears to be a contender for a spot in the NCAA field next March.

Villanova's match-ups are:
Home -- Cincinnati, Georgetown, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Rutgers and St. John's.
Away -- Connecticut, DePaul, Notre Dame, Seton Hall, South Florida and West Virginia.
Mirror Series -- Marquette, Providence and Syracuse.

The Triage Philosophy posits that a team wants the games it is virtually certain to win, and those it is certain to lose to be played on the road, thereby applying home court advantage to those games where it may tip the balance.

Applying that theory to the home match-ups suggests the home court advantage may be best applied to 4 of the 6 opponents. Villanova has had home success recently against Georgetown, Louisville and Pittsburgh, while losing on the road to each of them last season. The Georgetown game was evenly matched until (literally) the last second of regulation. Villanova split last season with Pittsburgh (taking the home game, losing on the road) and has held serve against some challenging Cardinal teams over the past 4 seasons. Rutgers and St. John's appear to be misplaced. I suspect most Nova fans would feel confident (no doubt this will bring a snicker or two from Scarlet Knight fans) about beating those teams on the road. Cincinnati beat Villanova in Fifth Third last season, in one of the most physical games the Wildcats played. With another brutally large front court contingent ready to play this season, the Bearcats may be a good team for the Pavilion. So it appears 4 of the 6 games are "advantageously placed".

If certain/virtually certain wins and losses belong on the road, then the news is good, as it appears that 4 of the 6 match-ups fall into that category. Villanova, despite a good deal of fan confidence, has won only 1 of the last 3 Joyce Center meetings (that one on a last possession tip in by Kyle Lowry, during Notre Dame's "unlucky season"). Notre Dame beat Villanova in Philadelphia last season. The Irish lost Rob Kurz from a team that finished 4^th in the conference and won 14 conference games. On paper at this point in the preseason, that looks like a loss to me no matter where it is played. Wins appear to be in the offering at South Florida and Seton Hall, again irrespective of location. That leaves Connecticut, DePaul and West Virginia to resolve. UConn appears to be a consensus #1/#2 finisher in the conference, which I weigh against Villanova's 3-1 record versus the Huskies in the past 3 seasons. While definitely blessed with a very athletic front court, they did not quite know how to use that advantage effectively against the Wildcats. I don't know if the UConn squad has progressed enough to take a game in Philadelphia, though I suspect if the preseason evaluations are true, they could take a Storrs-based (or possibly even a Hartford) game versus the Wildcats. DePaul has struggled with conference opponents in 3 of the 4 seasons they have been members of the Big East. But Villanova has lost twice in the Rosemont Arena over the past 2 seasons. They should win this season, but then I said that last season too. Villanova beat West Virginia in the Pavilion late last season. But historically they have struggled in the Coliseum, even against some mediocre Catlett and Beilein teams. Huggins will field a pretty solid team next season. I'd rather see them in Philadelphia.

Villanova's mirror series will be with Marquette, Providence and Syracuse. Marquette finished in the second quartile last season (5^th seed going into the Big East Tournament), while Syracuse finished tied with Villanova and took 9^th seed in the BET. Providence was the last team "invited" to New York City, finishing with a 12^th seed. The schedule-maker seems to have put aside the top-middle-bottom approach in favor of 3 possibly very even matchups. Another oddity (and I am not sure, should it truly be an advantage...) is that the head coaches at Marquette and Providence are new. Buzz Williams over at Marquette has had, as an Assistant Coach, a single run through the Big East. Let's hope he was taking notes. Williams also has a single season of experience as a head coach (at New Orleans in CUSA). Though on the job less than 2 monthes he has completed his staff and signed several recruits for the class of 2009. MU will bring a senior-led squad to play next season. Taken together, Marquette may not step back far (if at all? -- a number of major web sites list Marquette above Villanova in preseason rankings, often placing Marquett in the Top 15) with the changing of the guard. Providence also brings a senior-heavy squad under the direction of Keno Davis. Davis has a single season of head coaching experience at Drake, and appears to have a position or two still open at Providence. Recruiting has also lagged a bit as Davis has adjusted to the conference and change of scene. The transition may not go as smoothly for the Friars. And the third oddity of the mirror series is Syracuse. The Orange and Wildcats have been "mirror-matched" every season since the Big East expanded. If someone paired me 3 times in a row with someone I would have to think they are match-making. I wonder if there is not some thinking along those lines going on in the conference offices (and maybe at Syracuse and Villanova too?). The record for those three series is 4 - 2 Wildcats. Villanova swept Syracuse in 2005-06, holding serve in 2006-07 and having a somewhat crazy reversal last season. The Wildcats won in the Dome, but dropped the home game. Gaining a sweep with any of those 3 will be very important, though not, on paper, likely if the opponent were truly drawn from the group that will pretty clearly finish in the same quartile (or close to it) as Villanova. Any sweep would be important not only to establish more conference wins and enhance the team's place in the standings, but a sweeep against an opponent most likely to finish in the same quartile would also gain a clear tie-breaker advantage over that team...and work to push the team (downward) out of the quartile.

On the whole I believe these match-ups will work to Villanova's advantage come Big East play.