Waiting on the changeup
The Big East will undergo an extreme makeover next year when Boston College departs for the Atlantic Coast Conference and DePaul, Marquette, Cincinnati, Louisville, and South Florida arrive to expand the league into a mega 16-team basketball conference.
"We're about to enter a new era and I don't know who the standard-bearers are," Big East commissioner Michael Tranghese said last month during the league's Media Day at Madison Square Garden in New York. "We're going to have so many good teams, I think it's going to be impossible to dominate this league."
Despite the looming changes, nothing is likely to change this season. Connecticut and Syracuse will remain the teams to beat. In that sense, the league's hierarchy remains the same. "All I know about the league is that there's some great teams and I'm not sure there's any bad teams," said BC coach Al Skinner, who guided his 24-10 team to the second round of the NCAA Tournament last year. "I think Syracuse is good because they've got a lot of returning players. They say UConn is talented. I don't even know about Notre Dame, but people talk about how good they are. And Pittsburgh's got some people coming back."
The Huskies may have lost Emeka Okafor, Ben Gordon, and Taliek Brown from last year's NCAA championship squad that defeated Georgia Tech, 82-73, in the title game, but Jim Calhoun's roster is hardly threadbare. UConn is still loaded. The Huskies return perhaps the most talented frontcourt in the conference, led by the sophomore tandem of 6-foot-11-inch, 220-pound Charlie Villanueva (8.9 points per game, 5.3 rebounds per game) and 6-10, 230-pound Josh Boone (5.9 ppg, 5.8 rpg), but will be young and inexperienced in the backcourt where senior Rashad Anderson (11.2 ppg) is expected to lead an impressive group of newcomers headlined by Rudy Gay, a 6-9
Syracuse, meanwhile, returns five starters -- including guard Gerry McNamara (17.2 ppg, 3.8 apg) and forward Hakim Warrick (19.8 ppg, 8.6 rpg) -- from its squad that won the 2003 NCAA title over Kansas in New Orleans. The Orange were even picked as the favorites in a preseason poll of the league's coaches.
"I think we were the fourth- or fifth-best team in this league last year and we've got to prove that we're better, so it doesn't prove anything," said Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, whose 23-8 team earned the No. 4 seed to the Big East tourney after finishing tied for third.
Notre Dame will be out to prove its impressive assemblage of talent -- led by senior point guard Chris Thomas (19.7 ppg, 4.7 apg), former Tabor Academy standout Torin Francis (14.2 ppg, 8.8 rpg) at forward, and sharp-shooting guard Chris Quinn (14.3 ppg) -- is capable of guiding the Irish back to NCAAs after an NIT bid snapped a streak of three consecutive NCAA appearances.The Eagles return four starters from last year's team that bowed to national runner-up Georgia Tech. Led by junior power forward Craig Smith (an All-Big East first-team selection) and sophomore forward Jared Dudley (a unanimous pick to the All-Big East rookie team), BC will try to make the most of its final go-round in the Big East before its ACC departure.
"If we can have that kind of success, I'd be happy," Skinner said. "There's nothing wrong with that."
Ryan Gomes, the Big East's Preseason Player of the Year, will return to Providence College after testing the NBA draft waters. One of two returning starters from last year's 20-9 team that was eliminated in the first round of the NCAA tourney, Gomes (18.9 ppg, 9.4 rpg) will be counted upon to help the Friars get back to the NCAAs and beyond the first round.
Pittsburgh, which captured last year's regular-season title and the tourney's top seed in Jamie Dixon's first year as head coach, looks to be a threat again with the return of playmaking guard Carl Krauser (15.4 ppg, 4.9 rpg, 4.5 apg) and dominating 6-10 sophomore forward Chris Taft (10.9 ppg, 7.5 rpg). Krauser, though, will likely have to expand his leadership role after the departure of guards Javon Brown and Julius Page from last year's 31-5 squad.
Jay Wright, whose Villanova Wildcats underachieved last year, going 18-17 and barely earning an NIT bid, may have the league's sleeper team, with the return of all five starters, including the backcourt trio of Allan Ray, Randy Foye, and sophomore Mike Nardi.
Seton Hall, with four starters returning from last year's 21-10 squad, will be in desperate need of a playmaking point guard after the departure of Andre Barrett.
Backcourt depth will not be a problem for Rutgers coach Gary Waters, who will return perhaps the most talented (and unsung) backcourt duo of Ricky Shields (15.5 ppg), who made 93 of a school-record 249 3-pointers, and Quincy Douby (12.5 ppg).
D'or Fischer (10.8 ppg, 6.2 rpg) will help keep West Virginia on an upward trajectory after the Mountaineers (17-14) recorded a winning season for only the second time in the last six seasons.
Georgetown, which fired Craig Esherick after a 13-15 season, will go back to the future in the hope a familiar name, John Thompson 3d, will rebuild the Hoyas. Meanwhile, St. John's first-year coach Norm Roberts inherits the daunting task of restoring order to a Red Storm program that was left in shambles last year after the midseason dismissal of coach Mike Jarvis.
