Big East Basketball: Season Preview

One of the most competitive conference's in the nation, Mike Palmietto breaks down the Big East.

First off, last years regular season winner, was Georgetown, who went 15-3 and beat Louisville in one of the last Big East Game's of the year, now they are a completely different team this year. And they also had an early exit to the NCAA tournament

Next, Pittsburgh, won the Big East tournament, and many people, including myself, believed they had the ability to go far into the NCAA tournament, but were also delivered with an early exit.

Now, with the 07-08 season in the books, I have been pondering, now who will compete for the championship in the 08-09 season.

Some of the teams I've been thinking about, are Connecticut, Syracuse, West Virgina, Pittsburgh, Notre Dame, and Villanova.

I have also thought that Louisville, G-Town, and Marquette have slim chances to.

For starters, with the loss of Padgett, I don't think that Louisville has the leadership, or the great chance's to be on the top of the division.

Next, with the losses of Wallace, Hibbert, and Ewing, I can't picture G-Town doing elite this year.

Lastly, I think the Marquette coaching situation will be a distraction, and I also think that they are a streaky team, which is not for the better.

So far, we see two of the top teams last season are now in the middle of the pack in the Big East.

Big East Sleeper Team- Cincinnati- I like the Bear cat's this year, because of their star guard, Deonta Vaughn, but they did lose their last five games of the season, so its a coin flip their.

Next, I am going to breakdown, some of the teams, who in my opinion, are at the head of the pack.

First off, we have UCONN, who only lost one senior, a non-starter.

They did have good year last season, but I think they will just capitalize on that and get to a better 08-09 year.

Next off, we have West Virgina, who reached the sweet sixteen, and did, maybe the best of all Big East teams in the tournament, (don't quote me).

Truthfully, I don't know to much about Nova', but I saw a few games and liked what I saw, and I heard great things about this team, very great things.

Finally, we get to Notre Dame, with the leadership of Harangody, who by the way is a scoring machine, will probably just out-score teams, with one of the best offense's in the nation.

If you want to know about the Orange, I wrote a whole article about them a few weeks ago, here it is-

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/18631-Syracuse-Orange-Basketball-2008-2009-The-Team-to-Beat-190408

I think the division will pan out like this...

1. Notre Dame
2. Syracuse
3. West Virgina
4. Connecticut
5. Pittsburgh

What do you think the division will look like come March?

Lets hope for another good year in the Big East.

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