Affect of New Big East on the women's program?

[LetsGoNova]

Just curious what the followers of the women's program think of the new league? Seems like Villanova has a chance to become a real power without ND, UCONN, Rutgers, etc. standing in our way? I know Depaul is usually decent, as is SJU, but I can't imagine the A-10 schools being very competitive, looks like both X and Butler are around .500 this year. Let's hear it.
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[tplav2003]

At the top of the BE. Tom

 

[tpenter]

I was looking at the Catholic 7 rosters at the BE tournament over the weekend trying to determine who would be strong next year based upon the returning players. DePaul loses an awful lot in graduating Martin and Harry this year. I think the sleeper in the bunch is Marquette. They have a lot of good young players and upset Nova and a few other teams this year and they all come back. St. John's loses some star players and Georgetown's vaunted recruiting class remains unproven. Cincinnati, Providence and Seton Hall all need some help to move above their current second division status. I have no info on any potential new recruits coming in on any of the schools other than Nova.

Recall that Xavier was within two consecutive missed layups and a length of the court rush by Stanford from going to the final four a few years ago, but have lost all of their good players as well as their coach. Not sure if they have a young team or not. I don't believe Butler was ever good.

The talk is getting Creighton as the 10th team, if not right away, for 2014-15. This year they are 23-6 and tied for the Missouri Valley Conference regular season title and will be a NCAA team if they win their conferencetournament.

No matter what, it will be a significant stepdown in competition for Nova. Our RPI will be tough to get under 100 as an eighteen game conference schedule and four big five games would not leave much room for scheduling any top tier teams in the remaining non-conference schedule, assuming any of them is even willing to play us. If I were an opposing coach, I would never schedule Nova, at least while Harry is coaching. Why waste your time preparing your team for a style of play you can't possible get used to in a few days practice and will never again face in the season? Not much to gain and the potential for loss in playing us, especially if we are a lower RPI team from a mid-major conference. That being said, the opportunity to win the conference championship and getting an NCAA bid is probalby a lot better on a year in-year out basis than trying to compete in a major conference like the current (old) Big East used to be.

We were discussing ideas of where the new Big East would have their conference championship for the women. Big venues are probably out of the question and most of the schools are probably too small to hold a big event like that. All in all, a whole lot of questions and not many answers at this point. It is what it is, and I think Nova and the other basketball schools made the best play that they could, knowing that they could and did not want to remain with the remnants of the old Big East. A lot of work needs to be done to give it the best shot at success. Hopefully the television revenue in the early years of the contract will allow the league schools to widen the net and expose more fans to a continuation of the Big East basketball tradition on both the men and women's side.

 

[NovaUSMC01]

I think there is very little reason for optimism on the women's side. This is all very unfortunate.

GO CATS!!!

 

[UncleBill57]

Recently the talk is about a 10 year tv contract of perhaps $500 million perhaps with some women's games included. How might the new league affect recruiting. We lost some hard nosed and experienced seniors yet still have some really good young players returning.

 

[tpenter]

I think the dollars being talked about for the Big East basketball television contract are pretty similar to what Nova could have expected to get from the relatively paltry TV contract that the old Big East finally settled on, so I don't think the dollars and cents are a big factor.

Certainly recruiting is going to be hurting on the women's side. I doubt that the local girl from Episcopal would change her mind as a local school was probably a big factor on her choice. The other recruits? A big thing for them was probably the Big East upper echelon competition and national exposure a few times a year. Replace UConn, Notre Dame, Louisville, Rutgers and Syracuse on your schedule with Butler, Xavier and Creighton (playing each of them twice along with the dogs of Providence and Seton Hall) and you have a pretty significant decline in marquee games and less opportunity for easy travel to away games.

I haven't heard any rumors of anyone leaving the program or recruits reversing their decision to come here, but I really think it is going to be a tough sell going forward. That being said, the reduced level of competition will certainly keep us in the hunt for an automatic NCAA tournament berth each year by contesting for the conference tournament championship, but as a now mid-major conference we would probably only be a two bid conference at best.

All is happening so fast that people's heads are spinning. Certainly things must and will be sorted out very shortly so that the fall conference sports schedules can be put in place and a whole bunch of other things take place. I think when things have finally settled down, people will be able to get a better handle on things and put into perspective exactly what has happened and what possibilities are out there for the success and growth of the new Big East. At this point I would be much more optimistic on the men's side, but I have not been following any of the blogs over there to see what people think of it from the Mens BB side.

To say it once again, I don't think Nova or the other of the "Catholic Seven" had much alternative. Staying in the old Big East was not a viable alternative and I think they have forged a template for success as best that they could under the circumstances. I am sure that have been a lot of prayers being said across the land as decisions have been made to go into uncharted territory.

 

[novahoop]

I'm not convinced that conference changes will impact Harry's recruiting at all. Harry has never gone head to head with Uconn, Notre Dame, Rutgers for recruits. There is only a limited pool of athletes who are willing to play Harry's style of ball.

 

[tpenter]

Signing on to put up with and buying into Harry's system is a lot more palatable when you are playing a big time BB schedule that annually includes one or more NCAA final four teams like UConn, Notre Dame, Louisville, Rutgers. I think it is a mighty strectch to suggest to recruits that the New Big East will be getting any women's team into the Elite 8 anytime soon, especially since we might only get one or two conference teams in the tourney at all each year. Other teams may have the ability to schedule some tough non-conference teams, but I doubt whether Nova can get many top tier teams to agree to play them.

 

[whitecat]

novahoop,

Your comment about Harry's style of play is valid, but we are getting
somewhat better athletes.

 

[UncleBill57]

We got the Coyer twins because we were willing to take them both. Having seen Katherine play after Carolyn broke her hand I was impressed with her play too.

That's how we were able to get Brian Finneran from California for football, because Andy was willing to take his twin brother. Brian and Westbrook were two Villanovans who were Peyton Award winners.

 

[ccoyer]

Just to set the record straight, there were 17 D-1 schools that formally offered both twins. Quite a few of them are in this year's NCAA dance. There were many others that wanted to offer both, but the schools were not considered by the twins due to other factors. The first to offer was St. Joe's back in 2009, when the twins were just HS freshmen.

There were a large number of others that only wanted one or the other. Obviously, pretty much every school in the country wanted Caroline. Very few didn't feel that Katherine was good enough for them. UConn and ND didn't want Katherine for basketball but very much wanted her for soccer. Both girls were very marketable nationally as soccer athletes, perhaps more than basketball.

Not offering both mostly had to do with availability of schollies in that particular year for the positions the twins played. Harry struggled a bit with scholly availability for 2 guards in this class also.

In the end, Harry got the twins because Villanova more fully accomplished the list of overall college priorities that the girls set as important to them. That's it. Period. The notion that Villanova was "willing" to take both as a concession and the major driving force behind them being in Radnor is just plain false. Harry wanted both. It only made Villanova a viable consideration for them.

For a female athlete, being able to select the college of your choice IS the end game - no pro aspirations with multimillion dollar contracts for women.

The twins are very happy at Villanova. They made the correct choice for them personally. But they had plenty of nice options.










This post was edited on 3/19 9:08 AM by ccoyer

 

[needatobaby]

We have gotten great girls/young women, and i wonder how they would have done in other programs. I agree with tpenter that the ability to play UCONN, ND etc, on a year in , year out basis was attractive. Recruiting process is tough enough with promises etc. Harry likes to redshirt frosh. You get an extra year and a free Masters degree. Not bad.Leer had agreed to go to Vanderbilt, and decided to sign with us. Both are good academic schools in good conference. In the long run, I do not think it will affect the type of team we put on the floor. Delladonne may have been the exception, if she came. Nuff said. Been through it.

 

[paschall]

I don't know anything about recruiting on the womens side. Just guessing but I suspect it will continue at about the same level. Win a Conference Title or two in the new B.E. which has been out of the question with UConn and ND in the old B.E., and it may actually help recruiting.

 

[UncleBill57]

Thanks for setting the record straight about Carolyn and Katherine's recruitment.