Big East Basketball Rankings: Villanova rising, Creighton struggling

Marquette has won its last four games, two on the road, since dropping their conference game of the year to St. John’s. Behind an elite offense and vastly improved defense, the Golden Eagles have clearly emerged as one of the top contenders to win the conference this season. As I have said repeatedly over the past couple of months, I have been incredibly impressed with how Marquette has performed on the defense. They have plenty of versatility on that end of the floor and the scheming has improved.

Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that Markus Howard might just be the best player in the conference. An elite scorer and shooter with the confidence to led one fly from the other side of the court if left open, the junior can simply fill it up. Even though he sat out most of Marquette’s last game due to a back injury, Howard had averaged 35.0 points per game in his previous three games.

Looking ahead, Marquette’s next two games (Providence and DePaul) both come at home and it is reasonable to think that they could move to 6-1 in conference play. If that occurs, the Golden Eagles could move back into a tie for the Big East lead if Villanova suffers a defeat.

That concludes this edition of my Big East basketball power rankings. As I stated in the introduction, it is absolutely impossible to rank the conference at this point in time and this is just one opinion. You are welcome to your own as these will certainly change in the coming days.