Big East Basketball: 5 key questions and storylines heading into 2021-22

Big East Basketball sent four teams to the NCAA Tournament last season, including the Georgetown Hoyas, whose postseason Cinderella run of their own allowed them to get the automatic bid despite being under .500 on the season before the conference tournament.

The conference was solid overall, even though there were plenty of ups and downs outside of Villanova and Creighton. The Bluejays lost their entire starting lineup, while the Wildcats will be without Co-Big East Player of the Year Jeremiah Robinson-Earl.

There will be plenty of intriguing storylines and questions that need to be answered for all 11 teams based on the many offseason moves. To help provide some input into the Big East are three contributors for Busting Brackets that have plenty of knowledge on this topic. Here are the participating writers, as well as the burning questions followed by the answers.

Thomas Giustino – @UConnBigEast

Danny McCormack – @danny_mac1219

Trevor Sinodhinos – @sinodhinos

1. Who is the second-best team in the Big East? (Assuming that Nova is 1)

Giustino

This is a tough one. My UConn bias wants to say the Huskies because of their size and depth, but the offense needs to prove itself this year. I see a race between Xavier, UConn, and St. John’s for second place in the Big East. I won’t be surprised if St. John’s takes second, but I may be higher on them than most.

McCormack

The Musketeers bring back a very talented roster with the likes of forward Zach Freemantle and Paul Scruggs. Freemantle nearly finished the year averaging a double-double, while Scruggs returns for his 5th year looking to make a deep run come March.

Xavier has missed the tournament the last three seasons, but if they do not make it this season then something went terribly wrong for the Musketeers.

Sinodhinos

The hype should firmly be with St. John’s being the second-best team in the Big East due to the arrival of Tareq Coburn, Stef Smith, Joel Soriano, and Montez Mathis, all of whom could start at some point this season.

I also hesitate to not take St. John’s in fear of simply “creating a hot take’, but with St. John’s and even Seton Hall being good enough to lay claim, I have to put the addition of Jack Nunge plus a healthy Nate Johnson that will enable Paul Scruggs to play point guard as the difference maker that makes Xavier the second-best team in the Big East.