Big East Linkage: Woe Is UConn, Two-Star Player Recognition, And Lots Of Wonderful Freshmen

Big East Linkage is a news roundup feature on BECB. Feel free to send us any relevant links, stories or posts you think might be interesting to readers at bigeastcoastbias at gmail dot com.

On the football front, Andy Staples of Sports Illustrated released his all two-star recruit team for the 2011 season. Big East players Khaseem Greene, Shenard Holton, and Ryan Griffin all made the team.

Also, our wonderful Notre Dame blog, One Foot Down, started a multiple part series on how Brian Kelly should go about rebuilding Notre Dame. The first installment is here. I know Notre Dame isn't Big East football, but it's worth your time to read.

Brian Ewart writes about the miracle that is yet another successful regular season for Mike Brey and Notre Dame basketball.

Adam Zagoria on ZagsBlog.com takes an in depth look at the play of St. John's freshmen Moe Harkless and D'Angelo Harrison. Noting that both are tops in several statistical categories in the Big East and provide some hope for the future of St. John's basketball in what has been a trying year.

St. John's head coach Steve Lavin, who will not coach for the remainder of the year, also tweeted today that he is officially cancer-free after having surgery in October.

And after my successful prostate surgery on Oct 6, 2011 I'm now thankfully cancer free. Critical that men have annual checkups. #stjbb

— Steve Lavin (@STJCoachLavin) February 20, 2012

Dan Wolken with The Daily is not optimistic about the future of UConn basketball. With Jim Calhoun possibly never coming back, the school likely missing the NCAA Tournament this season, and being banned from the Tournament next season, it could take a number of years for the program to recover.

Along the same lines, Eamonn Brennan with ESPN wonders if UConn can get its act together for the remainder of this season.

Dana O'Neil posted her weekly Big East Power Rankings. I thought I saw South Florida as number six in those power rankings, but that can't be right, can it?

Jason Guerette with our Seton Hall blog South Orange Juice, has some thoughts on the slumping Pirates and their loss to Cincinnati.

Rumble In The Garden has his updated table of Big East efficiency margins for all 16 basketball teams. Again, what is South Florida doing up there??

Finally, enjoy this beautiful dunk from C.J. Fair of Syracuse from yesterday's win at Rutgers.