Big East Basketball: Power ranking the conference entering the final stretch

The Big East basketball regular season is coming to a close. With this being said, where does every team stack up based on their season to date?

This season, Big East basketball has clearly been a two-team race. Villanova and Xavier have a massive lead over the rest of the conference and rank in the top-5 nationally. The Wildcats and Musketeers are among the elite of the elite in the country right now and belong in the discussion for No. 1 seeds. In fact, in our most recent Bracketology at Busting Brackets, both received spots on the top line.

After this duo, though, the third-place team remains a question mark. With just a few games left for each team, the race remains incredibly tight. There are five teams that can still snag that spot and a tie would not be all that surprising. The Big East has been one of the most competitive leagues in the nation all season long and this fight for the third spot epitomizes how close each team is after the top two.

Considering the bottom four teams have to play on opening day of the Big East Tournament, these final games mean a ton for placement. Seven teams remain in strong contention for Big Dance bids and it looks like at least six will hear their name called on Selection Sunday. In our projected field update from Tuesday, seven Big East teams were mentioned.

In this edition of the Big East Power Rankings, I will take specific note of each team and where they stand within the conference as well as their possible placement in the NCAA Tournament field. (The “last week” section looks at the last two games by the team.)