Big East Basketball Rankings: Is Villanova still at the top after shaky start?

St. John’s is the only undefeated team remaining in the Big East. So…having said this, why are the Red Storm ranked at just No. 3 in this article? Well, there are a number of factors that go into this ranking. For starters, their strength of schedule is absolutely dreadful. As of this piece, the Red Storm’s SOS ranks 332nd (out of 353) in the nation. Because of this, many could make the claim that many major conference teams would be undefeated with this schedule.

Also, even though they are undefeated, the team has not been particularly impressive to this point. The Red Storm have struggled with several opponents this year that, given the talent level of SJU’s roster, they should have easily blown out of the water. And while it is still early to rely on predictive metrics, it is important to mention that the Red Storm are currently averaging a placement of 63rd in the nation by predictive metrics (KP, Sag, Haslam, T-Rank, BPI). With this said, it is reasonable to be concerned about how the Red Storm will perform against high-quality opposition and to say that they should be even lower in these rankings.

But, on the plus side, St. John’s is meeting expectations to this point in the year. Considering their poor SOS, consistently snagging wins in non-conference was going to be absolutely mandatory in order for the team to compete for an NCAA Tournament bid. And, with an undefeated record through the first month of the year, they have done just that.

Shamorie Ponds has been as advertised to this point, averaging 21.0 points and 4.9 assists per game as the Big East Player of the Year frontrunner. But he is not alone this year. St. John’s can also rely on Mustapha Heron, LJ Figueroa, Marvin Clark, and Justin Simon to post double-digit scoring numbers on any given night. And that is the main difference between last year and this one. As long as this continues, SJU should be just fine.