Rutgers basketball vastly exceeded statistical predictions this year. Problem is, many other Big East teams (ND, Louisville, Cincy, UConn) did too. Interestingly enough St. John's isn't really on that list. One curiosity is that many statistical projections actually did have St. John's being good this year, arguing that they ran into bad luck last season. That meshes with the Big East coaches, who voted St. John's surprisingly high in their preseason conference poll, and didn't vote for Steve Lavin as COTY.
Men's lacrosse was ranked at #19, but then lost at Penn State. They started off against a weak schedule, but had looked surprisingly strong up to that point.
How do this year's NCAA Tournament teams compare in terms of APR and Graduation Success Rate? Please be aware of the giant, giant caveats involved in compiling those two stats (explanations provided in the links above). It's not an apples to apples comparison in terms of the seasons being considered.
Rutgers alum Chris Hill has done wonders with Utah's athletic programs, culminating in their invitation to the Pac-10 last year. People have rather short memories though as Hill is now facing criticism for mishandling their basketball program.
Syracuse alumni aren't happy that the school has weakened admissions standards. There's a similar debate as concerning Rutgers, albeit with different causes. Both are similar in regards to their academic and demographic profiles, along with peers like Maryland, Pitt, GW, BU, etc.. SU is getting criticized for putting too much of an emphasis on diversity, while RU has been forced to drastically boost enrollment in response to budget cuts. Speaking of which...
RU's budget pain of the past few years is getting spread around, with the new Pennsylvania Governor proposing massive cuts to their big state-related schools (PSU, Pitt, and Temple). All three are already less dependent on state aid than Rutgers, but would effectively be privatized were this proposal to pass. Similarly, UConn, which has received extremely generous support from the CT government in recent years, is facing a decent cut.
