According to the U.S Department of Education, Providence College ranks 11 out of 16 BIG EAST teams in money spent on the men’s basketball program from July 2009 to June 2009.

Total money spent by PC: $4,637,423

Hey, we spent more than Notre Dame ($4,380,691).  Then why can’t we effing beat them ever??

Marquette is the Johnny Moneybags of the conference, with $10,306,548 spent!  Maybe they had to hire additional security from January-June after the Jonathan Xavier fur-coat-on-the-court issue? That has to be the only reasonable explanation.

via Chicago Tribune

Apparently Jamine Peterson’s amazing 29 point, 20 rebound performance was not good enough for any BIG EAST weekly honors, or any mention in the ESPN Weekly Honors post.  I guess his stinker against Louisville brought him down so much, even doing something only 12 other BIG EAST players have ever done could not make up for it.

Harangody, Oriakhi Earn Weekly Men’s Basketball Honors

Harangody was named BIG EAST Player of the Week after he averaged 30.0 points and 5.5 rebounds and shot 57.9 percent from the field (22-of-38) to lead Notre Dame to a pair of close victories against BIG EAST opponents.  Harangody scored a season-high 36 points — including a go-ahead free throw with 1.9 seconds left — and had six rebounds in a 74-73 win at USF. He had 24 points and five boards on 9-of-15 shooting in a 70-68 win against No. 8/8 West Virginia

YAWN.  Jeremy Hazell (averaged 23 points), Dominique Jones (averaged 28 points), Wes Johnson (averaged 19 and 10 in two games), and Friar killer Scottie Reynolds (averaged 18 pts and 3 assists in 2 wins) made the honor roll.

In ESPN land, Katz doesn’t even give Greedy a mention among many other good performances for the week.  I guess the fact that it was against Rutgers makes it ho-hum?

Tennessee, CofC’s Goudelock take home honors

Seton Hall’s Jeremy Hazell, who has never seen a shot he doesn’t like, scored 33 in a win over Cincinnati.

Srsly? Man, if only Greedy could hit one of those 4 foul shots in a row he missed in the end to get to 30 points.

Forget the parade of Hall of Fame coaches, the endless array of nationally televised games, or playing at Madison Square Garden for the BET.  BORING.  We finally have the real reason for why players want to play in the BIG EAST.

In the upcoming issue of ESPN the Magazine, they did an anonymous poll of 100 players from 23 Division 1 conferences asking various questions like “Who is the best player?”, “What is the best program” blah blah blah.  What caught my eye was the following question.

How many times each week are you hit on just because you play college basketball? [ESPN Insider Required]

Who comes up at #1?

1. Big East: 13.4 hits per week

I’m sure this is completely accurate because dudes never lie about this kind of thing.  Nevertheless, players from the BEAST apparently get hit on two times a day — even the scrubs on DePaul?!?

Suck it ACC (only 8th place at 7.3 hits per week)!!

These numbers are almost as high as the number of times I am hit on just because I blog about college basketball (it’s times).

Some teams may not be getting their wins in the most prettiest manner, but the BIG EAST is now a perfect 29-0.

Most people thought that DePaul would be the first to go down after finally playing their first game, but they beat Columbia 59-53 behind Mac Koshwal’s 19 points.

Who is going to be the first BIG EAST team to lose?  7 games will be played before the Friars next game on Friday night.

Cincinnati takes on Toleda at home tonight.

Pittsburgh and Villanova have relatively easy home match-ups on Thursday.  Syracuse has their hands full in their road game against #12 California, and South Floria is, well South Florida.  DePaul also has another game at 1PM on Friday at Northern Iowa, so there is a good chance someone will lose before the Friars tip off.  Not like it matters or puts any additional pressure on PC to win, but you just don’t want to be the one to make the final out during a huge rally.

The Beast Rears Its Ugly Head

With 8 teams in the Top 25 AP and coaches polls, Jeff takes a look at the next 5 teams in the Big East, who are all doing “reasonably well”.

Providence was the chic pick to steal one of the top 8 spots in the Big East this year, but the Friars struggled immediately, losing their first game to Northeastern … at home. Now, PC is quietly 6-3, with a good win against Rhode Island. PC still plays at Boston College, but other than that, there really aren’t any other spots for good nonconference wins. This enigmatic bunch looks primed for about a 6-12 or 7-11 finish in the Big East. Steal a win or two, and the Friars could have 17 or 18 wins to their ledger, which still might not be enough.

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Do any of these teams have the talent to match up with the Big 8? Out of this bunch, I’d say WVU and Providence do; the rest don’t. But WVU has had injury issues, and Providence goes cold, can’t play defense and is about as predictable as an M. Night Shyamalan movie.

According to ESPN.com “What’s Hot and Not for the College Basketball Season”

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/preview2008/columns/story?columnist=oneil_dana&id=3698731

‘Big East: The league is cooking up quite a send-off for commissioner Mike Tranghese. The Big Beast has a record seven teams in the preseason poll and owns 40 percent of the top 10. Come March, don’t be surprised if the Big East breaks the bracket bank with as many as 10 teams in the NCAA tournament.”

Hmmm, I wonder which team it is that everyone is predicting to finish 10th in the BIG EAST? They must be gooood. And whoever blogs about them is quite handsome.

Sharaud Curry also gets a quick shoutout in this article under “HOT: Comebacks”

‘Fans nationwide will raise a glass to toast continued health to returning injured players.”

You Syracuse fans may ‘raise a glass’ for Rautins and Devendorf, but I’ll be drinking a whole fucking case of tasty seasonal winter brews per game to deal with our season.  That’s how I roll.