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Message: [QUOTE="jncuse, post: 867554, member: 1969"] Not really buying that. Purely looking at this year vs prior years of the Big East sure you are correct. But if the Old Big East existed this year it would not be elite nor deep - not much different than the ACC. But lets go deeper than that. I think we let the great matchups (ones we are inherently more interested in as BE fans), rivalries and the recent highs of the conference cloud our judgment. The recent highs of the conference is not the way it always was, and can certainly be argued as somewhat artificial. The most important factor we overlook is that it was a 16 team conference, in an era that other leagues were between 10-12 teams. The Big East was as good as any other conference - but when you have 4 to 6 more teams in your conference (and assume the league are equal) of course the 16 league team will look more deep. Your league will get more seeds - the conference quarters will look appealing as well. You will have more better teams. We have Syracuse, Pitt, Notre Dame and Louisville heading to a conference with 12 other teams (all of which have been 5 seeds or above at least once the last 10 years). Why would you not expect this conference to get 8-10 seeds in future years. How quick we forget that nearly 1/3 of the Big East leeched on the rest of the teams for mostof, if not all of the past 10 years. Rutgers, DePaul, USF, Providence and Seton Hall were pretty much irrelevant for the last 10 years. When 1/3 of your conference is irrelevant for such a long period can you really argue your conference is that deep? Some years the Big East was really deep in spite of those teams - but I also think some years some mid level Big East players got in the NCAA by beating the sisters of the poor in conference. No ACC programs have had as bad resumes the past 10 years as those five teams. Sure some are really down right now - Wake, BC, and Georgia Tech (but at least they smelled the tourney above the 10 line in recent times. They deserve the benefit of the doubt) [B]Look at it this way - we have Syracuse, Louisville, Notre Dame and Pitt heading to a conference where the leech factor (based on recent history of last 10 years) is much lower than the Big East.[/B] If the Big East could regularly get 7-11 teams in recent years, with 5 full time leeches, why wouldn't the ACC get as many? The ACC as it will be constructed (For now anyway), would have had 10 teams in the tourney just 3 years ago (and 11 if Seth Greenberg had his way), and would always have at least 8. I know the Big East reached 11 once (USF one off), but this is basically at the same level. Also we should not forget that the dominant Big East is a post 2005 and pre 1992 phenomenon. Those periods in between the ACC was much more deeper and dominant than the Big East, with the exception of 1996. 1996 was a great year for the Big East. You can argue 2003 as well if you must!! And many years post 2005, the BE was not deeper, just bigger [/QUOTE]

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