Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Tournament Preview: Big East

The colossal clusterfuck that is the Big East Tournament is underway in Madison Square Garden, and there have already been upsets in the first two games. While both are surprises, neither is especially extraordinary. TAPE had Cincinnati pegged as an 11.5-point favorite over DePaul, but still gave the Blue Demons a 1 in 5 chance at the upset. St. John's, in what is essentially a home game, had a better than 1 in 4 chance of knocking off the Hoyas. In any case, this should end any NCAA talk for either Cincinnati or Georgetown. In the evening session, TAPE likes Notre Dame by 7 over Rutgers (73.8 to 66.6) and Seton Hall by 4 over South Florida (67.5 to 63.1) in the nightcap.

The pre-tournament odds looked like this (the number in each column represents the team's odds of playing in that round; the number in the far-right colum indicates the team's chances of winning the conference championship):

Based on the following table of matchups:

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