Snubs and success indicators

Mike Tranghese’s snub of the men’s basketball team got BC AD Gene DeFilippo fired up. You can argue the merits of rewarding the trophy on the road, but I really attribute Gene’s outburst to the build up of the last two years. Since the ACC talks began, Trangeshe has taken many jabs at BC and Gene -- while being less critical of Miami, Va. Tech and Syracuse. Gene remained silent until now. Who knows why the remaining Big East teams sit on the sidelines as Tranghese continues to plays petty games with ABC/ESPN, BC and other conferences? The inevitable split of the Football and Basketball schools will be messy under his management.

All the talk over regular season titles and trophies got me thinking: what is a better indicator of NCAA success –- Big East regular season titles or Big East tournament titles? Turns out there is not a strong correlation with either. BE Tourney winners advance further (on average), but the mean for both is the Sweet 16. And the correlation between winning the Big East Regular Season title, Big East Tournement Title and the National Championship is very small (.17).