Big East (co)-Coach of the Year

I got bagged on a little bit on Twitter last night for not being a big enough fan of the Big East. I'm fine with that; I'll cop to not being a huge conference partisan. If Xavier plays well, I'm not losing a moment's peace over what goes on with the rest of the league.

With that said, I don't particularly love having the conference being a laughingstock. I'd be tickled to see the league get some respect on the national level. So...

If you want respect on a national level, don't snub a coach who is winning national coach of the year awards when it's time to award your conference coach of the year award. Don't name someone conference coach of the year who is going to look distinctly in over his head as his team dissolves on national television.

Don't let your conference coach of the year stand there catatonic as the star it's always been questioned that he could control drops a 56 ORtg on a 36% usage rate, or 10 points on 4-24 shooting. Don't have a dude who is going to hamstring his team with a really poorly timed tech when they're trying to fight back in.

Give it to the dude who dresses like he's sponsored by Armani and does nothing but win conference titles. Or maybe consider a vote or two for the guy who took a team from unranked and unrated at the beginning of the year to the top ten for most of the second half of the year.

I'm not going to be like that guy who chants "SEC" at a mid-December bowl game, but I'm fine with supporting the conference. That doesn't mean I'm not going to point it out when the Big East or one of its members does something dumb. Last night, Kevin Willard pointed it out for me.