Rating the Orange
For a week, the Syracuse Orange used a label of "overrated" to motivate their run to the Big East title. Now, as Big East champions, they'll sit and wait to see how much they helped their seeding with a win over Pittsburgh in the championship game. Last year, West Virginia, like Syracuse, sat on the Big East bubble entering the conference tournament. The runners-up got a seven seed, and Gothamist thinks Syracuse can do better than that. West Virginia clearly proved better than its seeding, and Syracuse could easily make the Sweet 16.
As for the rest of the Big East bubble, Sunday will be a nervous day until the field is announced at 6pm. Seton Hall and Cincinnati will have to sweat it out. If the selection committee wants to set a record for most bids awarded to a conference, one or both will make it. Syracuse, Connecticut, Villanova, West Virginia, Pittsburgh, Georgetown and Marquette are all locks. The Orange showed this week the best week to handle being on the bubble: win an automatic berth and remove all suspense. Seton Hall and Cincinnati didn't even win a game, and that they may come to regret.
Photo by Frank Franklin (AP) via Yahoo
