March Madness & the Big (L)East

This has been one of the most exciting NCAA Tournaments I can remember in the past few years. Even though my Terps aren't in it, I've enjoyed watching the tournament tremendously. There have been so many close games and last-second shots to win games. The best part, however, is all of the higher seeds making it to the Sweet Sixteen. There are five teams that are 8 seeds or higher that have advanced. Pretty cool to see.

One of the bigger story lines in this tournament is the underwhelming performance of the Big East... or should I say Least? Having a record setting eleven teams in the tournament and being known as by far the best conference in all of college basketball, it's a bit ironic to see only two of the original eleven teams in the Sweet Sixteen. Think about this for a minute, the city of Richmond has just as many teams (VCU & Richmond) in the Sweet Sixteen as does the Big East. Four conferences have just as many teams or more in the Sweet Sixteen as does the Big East: the Big Ten, SEC, Mountain West, and the ACC, which leads all conferences with three teams in the Sweet Sixteen.

For as much credit as the Big East got this season, they sure haven't proven much in the big dance. Let's look at the records of the conferences in the tournament.

• ACC 7-1
• Big Ten 7-5
• SEC 4-3
• Pac-10 4-3
• Big East 9-9
• Big 12 4-4
• Mountain West 4-1
• The Colonial 4-2
• Atlantic-10 3-2

Clearly, the ACC has been the best conference thus far in the tournament. It is especially amusing to see after all of the criticism they got for being very weak this season.

I'm looking forward to a stellar second weekend of the tournament and I hope you all are too!