One of the best parts of the early college basketball season is that, year after year, the big-time programs of the BCS conferences (mostly) load up on cupcake teams from lesser-known conferences to begin their campaigns — and those teams prove to be more substance than fluff.
More often than not, those cupcakes turn out to give some of the more talented squads from conferences such as the Big East a run for their money, even knocking off a few of them along the way.
The Big East has had its fair share of losses in the early going as some of the teams we picked to be contenders for the conference championships are dealing with some early season growing pains.
Preseason No. 22 Cincinnati, which has been criticized for having too easy of a nonconference schedule, has lost a pair of games in their first five; once to Presbyterian and the other to Marshall in overtime on Friday night.
Pittsburgh, thought by many to not only be near the top of the Big East but also have a fighter’s chance at the national championship, dropped an early season game to Long Beach State. West Virginia lost to Kent State during ESPNs 24-hour marathon of hoops. And even defending national champions Connecticut fell to Central Florida in the Battles 4 Atlantis tournament in the Bahamas.
In each instance, you’re sure to find a hard-core fan that will play Chicken Little and claim the sky is falling, pointing out everything that went wrong in the (enter your team’s November collapse here) game.
We’ve heard it over the past few seasons about how the gap between the majors and mid-majors is closing, and each year it seems we see more and more instances of that belief becoming fact with these so-called upsets.
One thing Big East fans need to grasp ahold of is this: it’s only November. Things will (or at least should) get better.
You’ll hear announcers calling the games on ESPN and CBS talking in clichés about teams being completely different now than they will be in February or March and even though it is a cliché, it’s true.
That’s how sayings become clichés, they turn into assumed truths. So while maybe your Big East team has dropped an early season game that was supposed to be a snoozer, don’t it deter you from an expectations you might have had before the season began.
These teams, especially some of those who are incorporating some new talent into their rotation need some time to gel. With each passing game comes more experience.
Now, if you’re dropping games to Presbyterian and Kent State in January, then there should be some cause for alarm.
