Look at the bottom feeders in the Big Ten or SEC

Katz, is the differenceIf you ask me, Duke is playing as good of basketball as just about any team in the nation.Now there are your obvious exceptions such as Texas and Kentucky, but I haven't seen any team, including those two, that are heads and tails above any other this season.Sure Kentucky has John Wall, who has been the most electric player, but lets be real they are beatable. For Katz to say that Duke isn't a title contender is playing caution to the wind because of seasons past.Everyone knows of the Blue Devils postseason woes over the past three or four years, but this years team is quite different than any of those teams.For one they have experience and veteran leadership which can never be underestimated. They also are pretty talented, if not uber athletic, a constant knock on this years team.This group of Blue Devils have also been playing defense, a Mike Krzyzewski staple at a fairly high level.Duke has easily handled their early season cupcakes, unlike some other teams either ranked higher or is more highly regarded. Their lone loss came against a pretty good Wisconsin team on their own court. Not a bad loss this early in the year.So what givesIs it the fear of being criticized for sounding like a Dukie, or is it the fear that the Blue Devil's early season success will give way to another late season collapseAny team that is in the top 10 with two wins over top 15 teams should at the very least be considered a contender. Lately it seems any team not named Duke would probably be at least mentioned.Now I don't think Duke is a favorite and personally I'm not sure if they have all the components to make a title run. But I'm not quite ready to completely rule them out just yet.They are currently 9-1 and have two more games that they should win before heading into ACC play, where they currently should be considered the front runner.Will Duke win a National Championship this year On that I'm not so sure, but are they a contender Yes, they are, regardless of what the "experts" might say..

The thing that the Big East has never seemed to understand is that Football pays the mortgage while basketball pays the lights.Ever since the inception of the Big East, the focus on the organization of the league has been around basketball. Not that basketball isn't a profit producing enterprise that puts butts in the seats and get the alumni and fans all riled up, it certainly is. But all of the moves the conference has ever made have been to protect Basketball, while football at the end of the day, drives budgets.I'm not gonna go through Big East history but an excellent article to bone up can be found in 2 parts here: http:// The part that I want to get to is that Joe Pa was trying to get an Eastern All-Sports league together but the Cuse and BC didn't want to leave the Big East and Joe Pa knew it so Penn State applied for admission into the Big East and the Big East voted down Penn State and elected to invite Pitt, and Penn State subsequently joined the Big Ten.Soon thereafter, the Big East football playing schools started to feel the heat on the football field in terms of profitability when Oklahoma and Georgia sued and earned the Big College Football schools the right to negotiate their own media deals. The three aforementioned schools realized that they didn't have the clout to demand the sort of money other schools could earn especially without...you guessed it Penn State.It may have seemed for a while that basketball may carry the day but at the end of the day the Big East primarily basketball deal earned them an astounding 6 year 200 Million dollar deal while the Big Ten got from ABC/ESPN a 10 year 1 Billion dollar deal and another 25 Year 2.8 Billion Dollar deal via the BTN. The SEC stepped up to the plate and smacked a 15 year 3 Billion dollarhome run out of the park between CBS and ESPN.Now, from time to time I would say that the Big Ten and the SEC have decent basketball squads. And as much as it pains me (an Ohio State/Big Ten fan) to say it. In most years the Big East plays better basketball than the Big Ten and every year they are better than the SEC. But the point of this article is to show that no matter how good the basketball teams are, it will not earn nearly as much money as a solid football program. Which leave the venerable basketball league in a precarious situation.Look at the bottom feeders in the Big Ten or SEC. The revenue they produce is comparable to that of the top Big East teams. And right now there is nothing the Big East can do about it or any moves they can make that will stop any BCS league from stealing their lunch. Right now if the ACC, Big Ten, or SEC comes calling for WVA, Pitt, Louisville, USF, Rutgers, Cincy, UConn, or the Cuse. Any of those schools would be hard pressed to say no because immediately the financial situation improves dramatically and out of conference games can be scheduled to keep Eastern rivalries alive.No doubt I can eventually see the basketball schools and the football schools splitting up and the football conference (whatever they will call themselves) will probably be heavily concentrated around the Ohio River cause in my opinion they are getting squeezed from all sides. The Big Eastern programs of Syracuse, UConn, and Rutgers are too valuable from a media standpoint for the ACC and Big Ten not to lust. So I think the foundation of the new football big east will be: Buffalo, Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Marshall, Cincinnati, Louisville, Memphis, South Florida and maybe East Carolina, Temple, and/or Central Florida.The fact of the matter is that the Big East is too spread out, have institutions that are not similar enough from a culture, resources, or student body perspective. And they are vulnerable to being plucked.Moreover with all of the money that the other leagues are bringing in they can upgrade their basketball programs too. (See Texas and Florida for confirmation)The worse decision that they made was voting down Penn State's admission and now the league that is perhaps the best in the nation in basketball will apparently be plundered because it lacks Penn State. Talk about karma..

No.I could probably end the article right there, but perhaps I should elaborate.After winning the World Series MVP, Hideki Matsui has drawn praise from Masanori Murakami, the first Japanese-born player to play in the MLB.Murakami stated that "Ichiro Suzuki has had many accomplishments, but they've all been in the regular season. As the first Japanese to win an MVP in the World Series, this is a great accomplishment for Matsui and will have a huge impact."You have got to be kidding me.I'm not trying to take anything away fromMatsui, who hit .613 (8-13) with three homers and eight RBI in the '09 World Series, six of those coming in the Game Six clincher.And I know that what happens in the postseason trumps anything in the regular season. Just ask Ichiro about the Mariners 116 wins during his rookie year of 2001. They lost the ALCS to the Yankees.But seriously, Matsui winning the World Series MVP doesn't trump all of Ichiro's accomplishments.Ichiro played pro baseball in Japan from 1992-2000, collecting 1,278 hits, a .353 career batting average, seven Gold Glove awards, and three league MVP awards.Matsui had a similar career in Japan.

He played from 1993-2002, recording 1,390 hits, a .304 career batting average, 332 home runs, 889 RBI, three Japan Series titles, a Japan Series MVP, and three league MVP awards. He also earned the nickname "Godzilla", at first for his skin problems, but the nickname stuck due to his reputation to hit balls off the Tokyo Dome ceiling.So, comparing their NPB days, Matsui had a slightly better career.Ichiro made the jump from NPB to the MLB in 2001 by signing a contract with the Seattle Mariners. After not expressing interest in a uniform number, he was given No. 51, which had previously been worn by Randy Johnson.Ichiro vowed not to bring dishonor to the number.He didn't.Ichiro led the league with a .350 batting average, 56 stolen bases, 738 plateappearances, and 242 hits, earning him both AL MVP and AL Rookie of the Year honors. He also won his first Silver Slugger award, and the first of nine consecutive Gold Gloves. tours around the Mariners schedule so that tourists could see Ichiro play.Matsui decided to follow suit in 2003 after turning down a $64 million, six-year deal with the Yomiuri Giants.Matsui was signed by the New York Yankees, where he led the league with 163 games played, and started his MLB career with 518 consecutive starts.