clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Your 2014-15 Big East Basketball Media Day Live Blog/Open Thread

Keep your eyes tuned to this page all day for everything coming out of MSG today.

Jeff Hanisch-US PRESSWIRE

At 9:30 am Central, Tim Brando will be hosting the men's basketball show streaming on Big East.com.  That will be followed up by the women's basketball show at 1pm hosted by LaChina Robinson.  Both hosts will be joined by Pat O'Keefe as a reporter doing interviews and getting the latest happenings.  According to this press release from the Big East, these streaming shows will provide us with "enhanced coverage" of Media Day, including "inside access to in-depth interviews with coaches and players," so I expect a pretty similar event to last year's Media Day.

There's also going to be some kind of social media hub through BigEast.com, but there's not links to anything on the site as of yet, so I can't exactly say how they're combining Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, other than running tweets on a ticker on the streaming broadcast.

Of course, we'll be getting the preseason all-conference teams and players of the year along the way, as well as the preseason polling of the coaches to predict the order of finish on both sides of the aisle.

We'll be updating this page as the day goes on, so keep hitting refresh for all the latest news!

8:57am - Hey, things are already breaking loose!

1) D`Vauntes Smith-Rivera from Georgetown has been named the preseason Player of the Year.

2) Villanova is the unanimous choice to win the Big East.

9:00am - Here's the full rundown of the predicted order of finish, according to the coaches voting.

  1. Villanova
  2. Georgetown
  3. St. John's
  4. Xavier
  5. Providence
  6. Seton Hall
  7. Butler
  8. Marquette
  9. Creighton
  10. DePaul

Butler and Marquette are actually tied for seventh place at 28 points.  There's a clear grouping in the points allocated by the voting.  As the unanimous pick to win, Nova is the runaway leader.  Georgetown, who got Jay Wright's vote to win the league, and St. John's are neck and neck.  Then there's a bit of a drop down to Xavier, Providence and Seton Hall.  That's followed by a HUGE drop down to Butler, Marquette, and Creighton, and one final drop down to DePaul.  With the Blue Demons getting 12 points, they were not a unanimous pick to finish last.

9:05am - Oh, go figure, this is the year the Big East moves to a five man preseason all-conference team.  Here it is, and there's a shocker involved.

2014-15 BIG EAST Preseason All-BIG EAST First Team
Kellen Dunham, Butler, G, Jr.
D'Vauntes Smith-Rivera, Georgetown, G, Jr.
D'Angelo Harrison, St. John's, G, Sr.
JayVaughn Pinkston, Villanova, F, Sr.
Matt Stainbrook, Xavier, C, Sr.

No Darrun Hilliard, my pick as Player of the Year and the pick of the SB Nation Big East blog poll, too.  He shows up in the second team, though.

2014-15 BIG EAST Preseason All-BIG EAST Second Team
Billy Garrett, Jr., DePaul, G, So.
LaDontae Henton, Providence, F, Sr.,
Rysheed Jordan, St. John's, G, So.
Ryan Arcidiacono, Villanova, G, Jr.
Darrun Hilliard, Villanova, G, Sr.

2014-15 Preseason All-BIG EAST Honorable Mention
Roosevelt Jones, Butler, G, Jr.
Chris Obekpa, St. John's, C, Jr.
Sterling Gibbs, Seton Hall, G, Jr.

9:13am -

Hey, thanks for dressing up, Lav.

9:31am -

Well, it's time to drug test Billy Garrett.

9:48am - I've got the live stream going, and there's a music loop playing CONSTANTLY.  Also this, from @MarquetteWBB:

10:08am - The live stream has jumped to Commissioner Val Ackerman's comments from earlier today, but there's good news.  Well, two pieces of good news. First: NO MORE MUSIC LOOP.  Second: The commish says that the Big East will adopt any extra benefit measures that the Power Five conference adopt for themselves.

Ackerman mentions that there were "extensive" renovations to the Al McGuire Center.  I don't know if redressing the practice gym walls and redoing the men's hoops locker room counts as "extensive," though.

10:23 am - Someone's gotta proofread Stu Jackson's notes better, as he said Marquette is playing Arizona this year, not Arizona State, which is actually happening.

10:31am - Ok, I understood replaying Val Ackerman & Stu Jackson's statements, as they happened before the live stream went live.  But now they're replaying the Jay Wright/JayVaughn Pinkston interview that happened about 45 minutes ago, albeit without the music loop running.  At the end of it, Brando throws to Pat O'Keefe for the Chris Holtmann/Kameron Woods interview that we already saw... and it doesn't come up..... and there it is.

What a fantastic "live" stream we have here.

10:36 am - And now the livestream is dead.

10:39 am - It's back! But I can't hear Tim Brando, Greg McDermott, or Austin Chatman.

11:03 am - With no sound, I went to go wash some dishes, since I could see the monitor from the sink.  I saw the Villanova interview on screen for a moment, and now it's just sitting on a Big East logo.  The music loop came back for a moment, but now that's gone, too.  As I type this, the screen was stuck on an image of Tim Brando, Steve Wojciechowski, and Derrick Wilson, but now it's back to the Big East logo. *sigh*

11:32 am - I think they're playing the music any time they cut to highlights.  This is completely unnecessary.  I'm trying to listen to Tim Brando talk to Isaiah Whitehead and Kevin Willard, but they're playing the idiot music loop over footage of Seton Hall practicing.

11:49 am - Steve Lavin and D`Angelo Harrison wearing matching track suits as they talk to Tim Brando.  Lavin attempted to claim that he just threw the outfit on so he wouldn't wake up his wife this morning.  Uh huh.

12:09 pm - The Big East has put the women's basketball preseason polling up on their website.  DePaul is a unanimous pick to win the conference, earning all nine votes that they could get.  Marquette and first year head coach Carolyn Kieger are tabbed to finish seventh.

12:20pm - For a while, I thought the livestream had crashed.  Turns out it's just done for the day, as the women's hoops programming will take over at 1pm.  See, I would have known this if there had been sound during Tim Brando's interview of Commissioner Val Ackerman.

12:28pm - Creighton's Marissa Janning has been named the Big East Women's Basketball Player Of The Year.  Georgetown's Dorothy Adomako has been named the Preseason Freshman of the Year.  Marquette's Arlesia Morse is included in the 10 player all-Big East team.

1:37pm - It's amazing how much smoother the women's basketball end of the streaming is going.  It's almost as if they have a bunch of pretaped segments and they started a brand new stream and allowed themselves a fresh start after a terrible morning session for the men's side of things...

1:41pm -

1:53 pm -

1:58 pm -

Updates as they happen throughout the day...