Calhoun Says 18 Games Hurts Big East; Pitino says Deal With It
12:09 PM Thu, Feb 19, 2009 | Permalink
Email
 |
 |
Projo College Hoops |
|
« Game notes for Brown vs. Columbia and Cornell |
Main
| Former URI player Adingono charged with felony assault on 4-year-old son »
By KEVIN McNAMARA The Big East just wrapped up its weekly conference call and UConn's Jim Calhoun used the call as a forum to campaign to limit the number of conference games to 16. He says that playing 18 is only hurting teams in the middle of the conference as they try to get to the NCAA's. ``The only way is to cut the number of games back,'' Calhoun said. ``I'm looking at this from an over-view of a guy who's been in the league for 23 years. I want to see our teams and coaches succeed.'' Calhoun made mention not only of getting the maximum number of teams in the tournament but is also curious to see if the grind of the league hurts the elite teams as they try to win the national championship. Only one Big East team has made the Final Four since the league expanded to 16 teams three years ago. ``Have we paid too great a price in the regular season? Are we going to be fit, is Louisville and Pittsburgh going to be fit and able to win (in March)?'' A few minutes later, Louisville's Rick Pitino agreed with Calhoun's assessment but put everything in the proper perspective. The Big East bumped the league schedule from 16 to 18 games because ESPN and CBS wanted the ultra-attractive matchups that dominate your TV sets all winter. ``If you were in Conference USA or another conference, 18 (games) would be fine,'' said Pitino. ``In the Big East, 18 games is over-powering. We know that. But it doesn't matter what we (coaches) think. It's all about money and they signed a contract to play 18 games so it's not going to change.''
CommentsLeave a comment |
New comments
New photos
Authors
New posts
Projo blogs
Archives
Not for one second do I believe that Jim Calhoun has anyone's interests in mind other than himself and his team.
Report Abuse
I do think Calhoun is right by the time a team like PC gets through their schedule they can be pretty beat up after playing so many top twenty teams.
Their ego is deflated and their record will not allow them into the tournament.
Maybe they should join the Atlantic 10 and give them a better chance to get to the big dance.
I like PC as well as URI wouldn't it be great for them to be in the same conference?
Report Abuse