Big East Basketball: 5 questions heading into conference play

4. How many bids can the conference receive?

After an absurd seven teams made the NCAA Tournament last season, how will the Big East replicate that success? In a follow-up to the last question, I believe that at least five teams from the conference will receive bids. It is possible that six or seven teams reach the Big Dance but notching the No. 5 spot in the conference is extremely important.

In non-conference play, the Big East proved itself to be clearly in the upper-echelon of conferences in the nation and that will help them when the season is over. In addition, each of the top four teams previously mentioned will be hovering around the top-25 teams in the nation and wins over those teams would be high-quality victories.

As each Big East team plays the other nine teams twice, there are eight opportunities on each “bubble” teams schedule for these resume-building wins. How many of those teams actually connect on those opportunities is the real question. Selection Sunday could easily be a very tense day for the Big East, as anywhere from 5-7 teams could hear their name called on that famous day.