Big East Tournament Pairings Announced: Notre Dame vs. Rutgers First Round

by Rob on Mar 8, 2009 11:39 AM EDT in Basketball Comment 7 comments

Here's the 2009 Big East Tournament schedule:

2009 BIG EAST championshiP • MADISON SQUARE GARDEN • NEW YORK, N.Y.

Tuesday, March 10 – First Round (BIGEAST.tv)
No. 9 Cincinnati vs. No. 16 DePaul...................................................... Noon

No. 12 Georgetown vs. No. 13 St. John’s.......................................... 2 p.m.

No. 10 Notre Dame vs. No. 15 Rutgers.............................................. 7 p.m.

No. 11 Seton Hall vs. No. 14 USF...................................................... 9 p.m.

Wednesday, March 11 – Second Round (ESPN)

No. 8 Providence vs. Cincinnati/DePaul winner...................................... Noon

No. 5 Marquette vs. Georgetown/St. John’s winner............................ 2 p.m.

No. 7 West Virginia vs. Notre Dame/Rutgers winner............................. 7 p.m.

No. 6 Syracuse vs. Seton Hall/USF winner.......................................... 9 p.m.

Thursday, March 12 – Quarterfinals (ESPN)

No. 1 Louisville vs. 8/9/16 winner....................................................... Noon

No. 4 Villanova vs. 5/12/13 winner.................................................... 2 p.m.

No. 2 Pittsburgh vs. 7/10/15 winner................................................. 7 p.m.

No. 3 Connecticut vs. 6/11/14 winner............................................... 9 p.m.

Friday, March 13 – Semifinals (ESPN)

Thursday afternoon winners............................................................. 7 p.m.

Thursday evening winners............................................................... 9 p.m.

Saturday, March 14 – Championship (ESPN)

Semifinal winners 9 p.m.

So to break it down, our schedule looks like this (assuming we advance in every round):

First Round: ND vs. Rutgers (Tuesday, 7PM)

Second Round: ND vs. West Virginia (Wednesday, 7PM)

Quarterfinals: ND vs. Pittsburgh (Thursday, 7PM)

Semifinals: ND vs. UConn/Syracuse/Seton Hall/USF (Friday, 9PM)

Championship: ND vs. Louisville/Villanova/Marquette/Georgetown/St. John's/Providence/DePaul/Cincinnati (Saturday, 9PM)

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Comments

whoever gets to play providence is the big winner in this

by Will McDonald on Mar 8, 2009 3:50 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

So that Cincy/Providence game will basically for a tourney bid, yeah? Really the nightcap on Wednesday is the only game without really, really big implications for at least one of the participants.

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by CW on Mar 8, 2009 5:57 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

2 Victories for ND

Will victories over Rutgers and WVU be enough for a spot in the NCAA tournament? I think maybe.

fran w.

by fran617 on Mar 9, 2009 4:03 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

that horrible conference record is why we’re not in it, we get at least three wins and we should get in. However, this is unlikely to me. We SHOULD, emphasis on should, should beat rutgers. However I don’t see us beating WVU. And even if we did we would then have to beat Pitt which is a definite no in my mind.

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by KA1Z3R on Mar 9, 2009 8:12 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Three wins would be much better.

I think beating WVU would definitely improve the odds. A victory over Pitt would have a major impact on the selection committee. Say hello to the NIT. What do you think of a ND vs Northwestern game in the first round of the NIT?

fran w.

by fran617 on Mar 10, 2009 10:36 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

pretty favorable for us

beating northwestern would be a piece of cake. Then again, notre Dame often loses “piece of cake” games this year. But I don’t think even they could screw that up.

by KA1Z3R on Mar 10, 2009 4:24 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

What an awful way to structure the conf. tournament!

I understood the top four seeds having byes to the quarter-finals when only 12 teams were eligible for the conference tournament, but why are they structuring it this way if they take 16 teams? That can be easily structured as a standard 4-round bracket.

This format heavily favors the top 4 teams in the conference. That’s quite a regular season reward. Teams in the bottom half need to win 5 games to win, while the top 4 only need to win 3. I suppose for marketing purposes the conference wants to maximize the chances that the best teams are playing Friday and Saturday. Plus this guarantees those teams are playing on Thursday.

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by mdmnd9294 on Mar 11, 2009 9:31 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs