NCAA: Big East, big intrigue

Nothing lasts very long in college basketball. Just around the corner, there's a new game, a new night that will turn a season around, for better or worse. What's more, the trajectory of the season will probably be the exact opposite of what everyone in the building thought with a minute left in the game. But on the other hand, a victory turned into defeat might steel a team for the postseason, while a certain loss transformed into triumph might overinflate a squad's opinion of itself, the perfect recipe for a tournament meltdown.

In college hoops, March Madness--and everything leading up to it--is fueled by a volatile cocktail that only a mad scientist could brew. For defense exhibit A, just look at the Big East Conference.

That aforementioned night which turns a season around--and gives the laws of probability and logic a brutal smackdown--came on Wednesday night, as #18 Notre Dame defeated #9 Boston College, 76-75, to tie for the overall Big East lead.

Midway through the second half, it seemed that the crowd packed into South Bend's Joyce Athletic and Convocation Center was going to relax in the final minutes, as the Irish steadily and consistently outpaced the Eagles after the halftime break, building a 61-50 lead in the process. It seemed that the Eagles, who broke down in the second half a week earlier at Connecticut, would falter again on the road in the conference, something every top team has done this year (except Stanford... for now).

But just when you thought that Al Skinner's surprise team wouldn't be able to stand the heat, they got off the mat and blitzed the Irish down the stretch, forging a 75-74 lead with 20 seconds left.

Remembering how Maryland's last-minute collapse at home last month against league standard-bearer Duke carried over into the Terps' next several games, it stands to reason that a loss to Boston College--the Big East's best--could have sent the Irish reeling at an inopportune time.

As the Irish inbounded the ball, free of any backcourt pressure, with 20 seconds left, it seemed that the Irish would push the ball upcourt and immediately settle into their offensive set, getting off a shot with ample time for a rebound. Yet, the Irish--perhaps stunned by the deficit they faced, who knows?--essentially held the ball and made no move toward the basket until guard Martin Ingelsby took the ball with six seconds left at the top of the free throw circle, just behind the three-point arc, and made a move to the left elbow.

Since Ingelsby and the rest of the Irish had decided not to shoot until the last five seconds, the next logical step was to make their shot--likely the only one they would get, given their mental paralysis--a high-percentage one. Instead, Inglesby, guarded closely and well by Boston College's Ryan Sidney, uncorked a Shaquille O'Neal free throw that, just like most of Shaq's foul shots against Dallas on Tuesday, somehow went in with 3.7 seconds left.

After Boston College's Troy Bell got stripped on the Eagles' ensuing possession, Notre Dame had won a game they intially should have won with greater ease, but which they also shouldn't have won, given their meltdown at crunch time.

But before you think that Notre Dame's season will ultimately bring better results than Boston College, you might want to hold off on that opinion, and you might even want to change your mind altogether. Even if you know you're lucky, as the Irish surely do, it's still harder to gear up for an opponent that wants to avenge what it perceives as a fluke.

Boston College might be better situated to win the Big East Tournament as a result of last night's loss in South Bend. The Irish, on the other hand, might not possess the same fire in the belly when the three-day (for them, with a first-round bye) war known as the Big East Tournament comes around. Mike Brey will have to push Troy Murphy and the rest of the Irish in these final, precious days of the Big East regular season if Notre Dame is to develop a tournament-tough mentality.

As much as the Boston College-Notre Dame game has to offer in terms of the twists and turns of a college basketball season--and speculation on the next curve along the Road to the Final Four--the rest of the Big East offers similar dynamics.

Take Seton Hall and Georgetown as prime examples. After the Hoyas strode into the Meadowlands on Martin Luther King Day and polished off the Hall for a second time this season, the Hoyas stood at 16-0, while the Pirates were just beginning their season-crushing tailspin. It seemed that the two teams were headed in opposite directions. And while Seton Hall has gone down, Georgetown has surprisingly followed.

Reaching a peak did not increase the Hoyas' winning edge; rather, it made them a target and has put Craig Esherick's team in an unfamiliar--and therefore uncomfortable--mental situation that the team has not been able to cope with. Considering that offense requires intelligence (for ball movement, seeing angles, and finding spots in defenses) and steady nerves (for late-game money shots), it's obvious that Georgetown has become a very tight and shaky team over the past month. The Hoyas' shooting percentages and point totals, which reached a zenith in that 99-91 win over Seton Hall in New Jersey, have plummeted ever since. The ghosts of bricklaying Hoya teams of the past have resurfaced, and no one, not even steady point guard Kevin Braswell, has had an answer.

The Hoyas are now on the NCAA Tournament bubble, albeit on the very good side of it. A team that had visions of a Sweet 16 seed is now fighting for its life with a group of other bubble teams who, if they get hot, could conceivably displace the Hoyas from the tournament field. If Villanova, Connecticut, or new Dance tryout contestants West Virginia and Miami rip off two or three wins in the Big East Tournament, the Hoyas, with a first-round loss, could be sitting on the outside.

Now consider this hypothetical, which is still possible but increasingly unlikely after the Hoyas' loss to St. John's on Wednesday. Let's say that the Hoyas, tied for sixth in the Big East with a bunch of other teams, manage to scramble down the stretch and snag the fifth seed in the Big East Tournament. The Hoyas' first-round opponent, if they get the 5 seed, will be none other than Seton Hall, the probable 12 seed despite an embarrassing loss to Rutgers on Wednesday.

On a lazy afternoon in front of a half-full Madison Square Garden crowd, a nervous Hoya team will come face-to-face once again with Tommy Ammaker's Pirates, who will have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Wanna bet that Seton Hall wouldn't win that third matchup between the two teams? You know about the rule of three, right?

After slaying the Hoyas, the Hall could regain that confidence it had so early in the season, when the Pirates played big-name teams and had the look--not of a champion, but certainly a contender, a main player on the national stage. A few days later, Seton Hall could be sitting as the Big East Tournament champion with an automatic bid, much as Arkansas, the eighth-place team in the SEC last year, took the league tournament all the way to the Dance.

Georgetown, oh-by-the-way, would be out. You just knew that would happen a month ago, didincha?

For top dogs Boston College and Notre Dame, for bubble teams from DC to Miami, and for bottom-feeding underachievers such as Seton Hall, nothing is clear in the Big East Conference at this advanced stage of the season. Then again, nothing ever is clear in the world of college basketball.

These marches through mental minefields are maddening, aren't they?