It was another interesting Big East media day in New York beginning with the announcement that the Big East signed a two-year extension to keep the conference's tournament at the XL Center through 2011.

The last order of business before walking to Grand Central to grab the train home was asking Cincinnati coach J. Kelley Hall of his curious decision to vote Louisville first in the poll ahead of UConn, expected to be the preseason No. 1 in every major poll.

"No disrespect meant to Geno whatsoever," Hall said. "I think Louisville, just from looking at the championship game last year, the six-point game they played. They were coming off 26 wins. I think with the four starters back. I think they may be a little shaky at the point early. It was neck-and-neck. With Angel McCoughtry and Maya Moore you are sitting there weighing it. By the way, I did vote for Maya Moore for Player of the Year. Honestly I wish I could have split it half and half."

There were few other surprises especially in the individual awards.

Maya Moore, the first freshman to win the Big East Player of the Year award, was selected as preseason player of the year. April Sykes of Rutgers was the preseason freshman of the year pick. Those were my picks as well on this blog Wednesday. I also predicted 9 of 11 first-team picks. I didn't have Candyce Bingham of Louisville or Chandrea Jones of Syracuse and instead picked Notre Dame's Ashley Barlow, Erica Morrow of Syracuse and DePaul's Deirdre Naughton.

Six players were unanimous selections to the All-Big East but UConn senior guard Renee Montgomery was not one of them, a bit of a shocker.

"I don't really know how to feel about it, because I don't really have an individual agenda this year," Montgomery said. "My sole goal, my only goal is I want to get a national championship. I can honestly say that if nothing else happens besides winning a national championship, I would be happy."

I will applaud the Big East for one change in the itinerary this year. Rather than have every coach get up and speak about their team's prospects, Marquette's Terri Mitchell represented the league and gave a quick summary of what each coach felt about their team. That switch probably saved 45 minutes off the schedule and with each coach available to the media, the coach speak at the podium seemed unnecessary.