Missou's Taylor: Big East a Little Too 'Big'

BUFFALO -- Missouri is known as a defensive team. Not on Saturday. When the topic of which conference is best, Zaire Taylor went on the offensive.

"This year I would have to say the Big 12,'' the Tigers' senior guard said. "The Big East has a lot of talented teams, some elite teams. But at the same time, they've got about 30 or 40 teams in the conference.''

The onlookers in HSBC Arena, including two teammates sitting next to him at the between-games press conference for Sunday's NCAA Tournament East Region second-round game, burst out laughing. Taylor wasn't finished.

"So you've got to measure. When you figure the Big East brings eight out of 20 into the tournament, and then the Big 12 brings seven out of 12 -- we're going over 50 percent. They're still around 30 (percent).''

That -- public ridicule from an opposing player -- is what it has come to for the conference that all season had appeared to be at least a notch above the rest of the elite leagues in the country, and had the numbers to back it up. Strictly speaking, the Big East "only'' has 16 teams, and eight reached the field of 65. By the time Taylor, standing up for his own, launched that assault, four Big East teams were already gone.

Not long after Missouri's players and head coach Mike Anderson had finished talking, a fifth had been eliminated, with South second-seed Villanova going down to 10th-seeded St. Mary's, the fourth time in the tournament's first three days that a Big East team had been knocked out by a lower seed.

Naturally, the timing of Taylor's volley wasn't coincidental. Missouri's opponent Sunday is No. 2 seed West Virginia, and the top seed in the West, Syracuse, was also in the building, waiting to talk. Earlier that afternoon, Mountaineers star Da'Sean Butler had spoken up for his counterparts.

"How many of the Big 12 got in,'' he asked, already knowing the answer was seven. "One short,'' he smirked, then added, in support of programs that finished in the middle of the pack in the Big East, "they can probably finish top-two in any other conference. That's how tough I think our league is.''

Added forward Devin Ebanks, after attesting to the depth of the league, "I think the best teams (in the Big East) are still in the tournament.''

The ones still in are West Virginia (28-6), Syracuse and the No. 3 seed in the West, Pittsburgh, which faces No. 6 Xavier Sunday. All they have to do to salvage the league's flagging rep (and, as a bonus, reach the Sweet 16) is defeat, respectively, a Missouri (23-10) team that used its vaunted press to run Clemson out of the field; a Gonzaga team that made its name by knocking off high power-conference seeds like this, and an Atlantic-10 team many picked as a sleeper in the beginning.

And the Big 12? Besides Missouri, five of those seven were still breathing Saturday afternoon, with only Texas and Oklahoma State out (ironically, to lower-seeded teams from the ACC, which is also coming off better in the tournament than the Big East after its rep took a fierce beating in comparison all season).

More irony: Missouri's Taylor used the same argument to which the Big East had hooked its argument, for the Big 12. "I think we're a great example that any team can beat anybody,'' he said, pointing to his own team's loss in the Big 12 tournament opener to lowly Nebraska as an example, as well as Kansas State, a top-five team for the last month, falling to Iowa State in his home finale.

"That's who finished 11th and 12th in the conference,'' he said. "When you get to the bottom of the Big East, I think they are still competitive teams, but I think the teams in the bottom of the Big 12 are better.''

Then there's the Big 12's other ace in the hole: the No. 1 team in the country and the top overall seed in the tournament, Kansas -- although, Taylor said in what turned into a virtuoso press-conference performance, Big 12 loyalty has its limits.

"At the end of the day, we want to win,'' he said. "I mean, I don't think we're gonna be celebrating if Kansas or any other team in the Big 12 wins the national championship. I don't think we're throwing a party at Missouri's arena.

"I'm sure West Virginia wants to win -- I don't think they're going to be the most excited team in the world if Syracuse wins the national championship.''

Which brings it full circle. Beating West Virginia as a way to put another check-mark in the Big 12 column is far less of a motivation for Missouri than reaching the Sweet 16 for a second straight season. The Tigers know that their notorious full-court, all-game-long press and relentless running -- a philosophy dubbed "The Fastest 40 Minutes in Basketball'' -- might not be as effective against a taller, longer, stronger, deeper West Virginia team than it did against Clemson Friday. On the other side, West Virginia exuded confidence that it could deal with the press because they've dealt with them before and practice against them regularly.

Plus, coach Bob Huggins said, his team has been known to lock down opposing offenses on occasion. "We're gonna guard. That's kind of what we've hung our hat on -- we guard pretty good, and we rebound the ball. I don't think that's a secret. I don't think I'm letting anything out of the bag. I think Mike probably already figured that out.''

Huggins also weighed in on the topic of the day, having spent a year in the Big 12 at Kansas State before taking over at West Virginia. On the notion of his old conference being superior to his new, he deadpanned, "When I was in it, I probably would have said that, too. But now I'm not.''

That was the line of the day and a good final word on Big 12 vs. Big East -- until Taylor got behind the microphone.