Big East Men's Basketball Tournament

The Big East Men's Basketball Tournament determines the Big East Conference champion and the winner of the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Since 1983 the tournament has been held in Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York. Since the 2006 tournament, only the top 12 teams in the conference were eligible to compete because of the recent expansion to 16 teams.ref|bigeast The top 4 teams from the regular season earned a bye in the first round of the tournament. The tournament is the longest running conference tournament at any one site in all of college basketball. It is also the only tournament that has every single game carried on national TV by ESPN and ESPN2. Starting in 2005, all 11 games have been carried in high-definition.

Starting in 2009, the tournament will expand to include all 16 of the conference's teams. The teams finishing 9 through 16 in the regular season standings will play first round games, while teams 5 through 8 will receive a bye to the second round. The top 4 teams during the regular season will receive a bye to the quarterfinals. [cite news |url= http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Sports/2007/11/07/big_east_tournament_expands_to_16_teams/9037/ |title= Big East tournament expands to 16 teams |work= [http://www.upi.com United Press International] |date= November 7, 2007 |accssdate= 2008-03-12]

Seeding the Big East Conference Tournament: Rules and Tiebreakers

The twelve seeds in the Big East tournament are linked to teams' overall conference records. Non-conference games are not a factor. The team with the overall best record in the conference is seeded "1", the next best conference record "2", and so on.

Ties are broken using an elaborate set of tiebreaker rules promulgated by the Big East conference. [http://www.bigeast.org/fls/19400/pdfs/mensbball/tiebreaker07.pdf?DB_OEM_ID=19400&KEY=&SPID=11228&SPSID=94715]

Generally, teams with the same conference records are then analyzed in their head-to-head matchups. The team with the better head-to-head record gets the higher seed. If the teams have equal head-to-head records, the tied teams' records are analyzed against the next best conference team.

Anticipation For 2008-09 Big East

The anticipation for the 2008-09 Big East season leading up to the Big East tournament and NCAA tournament is the highest it's been in a long time. The new expansion to 16 teams for the Big East tournament isn't the only item that is enticing people about the season. It has been said by many that the NCAA tournament could get as many as nine Big East teams in, which is a record for one conference. The nine teams that are expected to play well are Connecticut, Georgetown, Louisville, Marquette, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Villanova, and West Virginia.

Previous Tournaments

References