The Big East media and the Big East coaches both voted Syracuse to finish sixth in their respective polls during Big East Media Day today.
The Big East media rundown, which includes 17 votes, put Villanova at the #1 slot, followed by West Virginia, UConn, L'ville, G'town and then the Orange. Your basement dwellers include Rutgers, USF, Providence and DePaul. Luke Harangody was named preseason player of the year and no Syracuse players made the 1st, 2nd or 3rd All-Big East teams. In fact, according to Waters, "No Syracuse player received a single vote." Well then...
There was plenty of discrepancies in how the media members saw the Orange as well as other teams in the conference:
Syracuse, for instance, received three fourth-place votes and four ninth-place votes. Cincinnati was fifth on one ballot and 11th on another. Same with Notre Dame.
More importantly, the media poll gave us a chance to peer behind the curtain at the media themselves. The Post-Standard's Mike Waters gives us the info in this video from his cubicle and we learn, Hey! The Big East Media...They're Just Like Us!
| Mike Waters on Big East basketball writers' poll. |
They have bobbleheads on their desk! They're messy! They have boring computer desktops!
The Coaches voted too and except for some slight reshuffling, they're pretty much on the same page. Nova, West Virginia, UConn, L'ville, G'town and Syracuse are your top six again while DePaul is everyone's pick for conference whipping boy. Harangody is your Preseason POY. This time, Arinze Onuaku ended up in the Honorable Mention section, the lone Orange to make any preseason list.