How are the teams in Big East Basketball faring to start the season?
Big East Basketball never disappoints every season when producing high-quality basketball.
Currently, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi projects six teams from the Big East to make the NCAA Tournament with Villanova, Creighton, Marquette, UConn, Providence, and Seton Hall.
In this early part of the season, each team in the conference is at a different position with games being played. DePaul has yet to play their first game, while Xavier and Providence have already played five games.
Navigating through the COVID-19 pandemic will be the most difficult challenge by far this season. Only one team, which is Butler, is currently on pause due to a positive test.
In the offseason, all six selections of the 2019-20 All-Big East First-Team left their respective programs. The departure of the top six players from the conference last season (Myles Powell, Markus Howard, Saddiq Bey, Ty-Shon Alexander, Kamar Baldwin, and Naji Marshall) will give way to new faces to rise to stardom and step up their game in the Big East.
To start the season, Villanova and Creighton were the only two teams to be ranked in the conference in the Preseason AP Top 25 Poll and the Week 2 AP Top 25 Poll.
However, that may soon change with a potential third team from the Big East to crack the Top 25, due to the recent upset victory on Friday night by Marquette over No. 4 Wisconsin.
Also, UConn, Providence, and Seton Hall all received votes in the Preseason AP Top 25 Poll. While Xavier, Butler, St. John’s, DePaul, and Georgetown are all looking to surpass their bottom-of-the-pack Preseason Coaches’ Poll predictions to be bid stealers come March.
We will take a look at how the Big East Conference stands at the early part of December.