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.
Mike DeCourcy of The Sporting News writes today that Syracuse is unbeaten. He also says the Orange are untested, particularly because the Big East is clearly in a down year.
Louisville forward Rakeem Buckles tore his ACL, again. It will cost him the rest of this season and probably next season as well. Buckles joins an exceedingly long list of injured Louisville players that includes Kyle Kuric, Stephen Van Treese, Wayne Blackshear, Mike Marra, and now...
Kevin Ware, star freshman signee that joined the Louisville team in December after qualifying late, has reportedly injured his meniscus. There has been no official word on the severity of the injury.
Cincinnati co-defensive coordinator Tim Banks is leaving his post to take the same position for new Illinois head coach Tim Beckman. Cincinnati's defensive improvement was the biggest factor in improving from 4-8 to 10-3 in year number two of Butch Jones' tenure.
The new Rivals 250 is out. Big East schools have 11 players committed. Pittsburgh leads with three, Louisville, Rutgers, and USF have two each, and West Virginia and Cincinnati have one. Only Syracuse and Connecticut do not have a commitment from a player in the top 250.
SI's Stewart Mandel grades the new hires in college football. He gives Pittsburgh's hiring of Paul Chryst an "A-". Oh, and smarmy Todd Graham gets a "D".
Gregg Doyel still thinks Jim Boeheim should be fired, but since he isn't, he should be coach of the year.
According to Greg Auman with the Tampa Bay Times, USF offered to play UCF this year in the Citrus Bowl in Orlando as a neutral field game and that UCF declined. The Knights instead opted to host a home game.
Andrea Adelson with ESPN takes a look at the attendance figures for Big East football teams over the past three seasons.