Since the conference realignment that sent teams like Syracuse, UConn, Louisville, Notre Dame, Pitt, etc. etc away from the Big East, it has not gotten a lot of love. Add the fact that there is no major football in the Big East, it is easy to see why the Big East gets overlooked. I want to put that to rest, though. The Big East is an elite basketball conference and there is no way around that. Every conference has its claim to fame. The ACC is unbelievably loaded. The Big 12 is impossible to play on the road with places like West Virginia and Kansas. The Pac-12 is the “Conference of Champions.” The Big 10 is home to a lot of hard-nosed play. The Big East combines all of those. Good teams? Check, seven teams as locks in the tournament and three ranked. Historic arena? Check, Butler’s Hinkle Fieldhouse. Championships? See: 2016 National Tournament. Hard-nosed play? If you have ever watched a Big East game, you know this is a definite.
Bracketology
Note: I’m going to leave the ACC out of all future arguments because it is far and away the best conference in the country, statistically and otherwise.
I thought since Xavier just pulled off the upset over Butler last night in the quarterfinals of the Big East Tournament, there was no better time than now for claims to be backed up with stats. Joe Lunardi now has all seven of the best teams in the Big East as locks for the tournament, with Marquette, Xavier and Providence all on the “Last Four Byes” line. All seven of those teams are in the top 60 in national RPI. Only the Big 10 can lay claim to that same stat (excluding ACC). The Big 10 is also the only conference in the country (outside of ACC) that has at least seven teams in the tournament as locks. Villanova is the overall #1 seed as of today. Butler fell to the four line with the loss to Xavier, who is currently an 11 seed. Creighton is a seven seed currently, and Seton Hall, Marquette and Providence are all on the ten line. Other conferences absolutely have many higher seeds, but they are top-heavy. The Pac-12 is basically a four-team league. The Big 12 beats itself up too much in conference play.
Other than all that jibber jabber, the competition in the Big East is high in every single game. The only team in the league that is perennial bad is DePaul. St. John’s is building with youth and Georgetown has been in a rut for a few years. Other than that, anyone can win on any given day. Also, there should be four teams here that should be at least on the four line, but stuff happens sometimes. Realistically, if Edmond Sumner didn’t go down for Xavier and Mo Watson didn’t go down for Creighton, those are two more top-20 teams. Creighton probably would have snuck into the top ten. Still, they have fought through the diversity and find themselves in pretty good position heading into the tournament. The best part about it is really the purity of college hoops. They have no other major sport to compete with. No one will ever say “Well yeah the SEC is pretty good this year, but it will never be as good as it is in football.” They just play ball. That is beautiful in a way.