Did moving into the BE hurt USF men's basketball?

[Flowers4Heisman]

Looking back, it leaves me scratching my head. Without our amazing and miracle run last year, USF men's basketball would have been completely abysmal in the Big East.

 

For me, I thought for sure the competition would make us better. And in a lot of ways we were --just not good enough for Big East competition.

 

But you would have thunk that we'd made more than just ONE NCAA Tournament bid as a Big East team.

 

So, did the Big East hurt USF men's basketball more than it helped?

 

[FatDaddyBull]

Honestly I think we'll find out in the next few years against weaker competition. If competing or winning conference titles it would be obvious w were strengthened by the tough opposition.

My thought is we should be given the last 4 years we've had some success in conference, at least competing in the games generally, when not winning. And I think it's seemingly given am edge in recruiting.

If we stink next year, well, still wouldn't argue it hurt us, but our basketball may just always stink

[usfgrad84]

I think it was the timing of the hiring of McCullum that hurt the program during the early years in the BE and we just started to recover from that 2 years ago.

I say the timing of the hiring because if you recall McCullum was hired to "clean up" the program from the "thug" mentality some people thought Seth had developed.

In the beginning of his tenure I remember there being a lot of kids leaving or dismissed from the program people walking off the court in prctice, etc. I believe we never played a season with a full roster under McCullum. We would have sucked in any conference we were in, but we dug a deep hole which spiraled interest in the program downward when we were completely uncompetitive in BE play. USF basketball was completely unwatchable in those years.

I honestly believe that the foundation is in place for USF basketball to really build its best program ever.

In the long run being in the BE is the best thing that happened for the program. I don't think you have the recruiting class coming in like we have without the BE and certainly no where near the facilities we have. The BE affiliation forced us to step up to the plate with these level of facilites.

[slick1ru2]

Everyone knew going into the Big East that men's BB was going to get trashed. No surprises there.

[DELdaBull]

Let's not forget that it had been 20 years between NCAA tournaments. USF was never a basketball juggernaut. We have won 20 or more games 2 times in the last 4 years. In the history of USF basketball 20 win seasons have only happened 1 or 2 other times.

Big East and Stan Heath has helped us.

[South_Florida_Flip]

Stan had two 20 win seasons over a 3 season stretch, so he has shown he can win here, even in a much tougher league than we were accustomed to.

[swamprat]

Looking back, it leaves me scratching my head. Without our amazing and miracle run last year, USF men's basketball would have been completely abysmal in the Big East.

 

For me, I thought for sure the competition would make us better. And in a lot of ways we were --just not good enough for Big East competition.

 

But you would have thunk that we'd made more than just ONE NCAA Tournament bid as a Big East team.

 

So, did the Big East hurt USF men's basketball more than it helped?

No.

[Bull Martin]

That's an absurd notion.  The program is leaps and bounds better than where we would have been.

[charsibb]

Exorcising the burial ground will do us wonders...

[Brad]

That's an absurd notion. The program is leaps and bounds better than where we would have been.

Agreed. At least we should be. Those BE years will be looked back on as a missed opportunity I'm afraid.