Big East Basketball Power Rankings: Top tier emerging, Xavier plummeting

Seton Hall, Butler, and Nova appear to be asserting themselves as the top teams in Big East basketball. Where does everyone stand in the power rankings?

Another week of Big East basketball is complete and the tiers of the league are starting to take a bit more shape. While it still feels surprising to see Providence up near the top of the standings, it is one of the few surprises so far in conference play. While some games have ended with unexpected results, the standings are not too far-fetched based on what we saw from the non-conference portion of play for each team.

Through the first few weeks of conference play, the expected favorites to win the league have performed essentially to expectations. Seton Hall, Butler, and Villanova are a combined 12-1 when playing the other seven teams in the league as they have continued to show their abilities as Top 25 teams in the country. As already mentioned, Providence also sits with only one loss although it has only played one of the Big 3 (and lost).

Following that group, three teams hold 2-3 records: Marquette, Creighton, and Georgetown. All three of these have shown signs of greatness but also major weaknesses in the early going. The Bluejays, though, have played the toughest schedule of any team in the conference through five games. Xavier and St. John’s sit at 1-4 and DePaul is 0-4 to round out the standings.

While my power rankings this week follow the current standings relatively closely (which shouldn’t be a surprise), there are a few alterations due to how each team has played to get to this point and that includes non-conference performance. So, without any further ado, let’s dive into this week’s edition of my Big East Power Rankings.