NCAA Basketball: Gonzaga exposed, DePaul unbeaten among key takeaways

The last Big East team to lose

The Big East Conference is arguably the most intriguing conference in the NCAA. The Big 12 may have the best non-conference winning percentage, the Big Ten has the most non-conference victories, and the Big East’s fifth-ranked non-conference RPI will not have anybody arguing they are the best conference, but it sure is interesting.

Leading the way in interest is not the Villanova Wildcats who were preseason Final Four contenders, or the St. John’s Red Storm with their transfers, the interest is headed by the DePaul Blue Demons who became the conference’s last undefeated team. Nobody is going to mistake the Blue Demons for the Blue Devils as first-year Head Coach Tony Stubblefield and the Blue Demons’ best resume builder is a 73-70 win over Rutgers, but their five victories match last season’s total.

Last season’s schedule was a little different as fifteen of their nineteen games were against fellow Big East members, so while their 2-13 conference record may not improve that much this season, if anybody were to predict who the last undefeated team in the Big East was going to be, the answer would not be DePaul.  Then again, nobody was expecting Javon Freeman-Liberty – who owns a career average of 15.4 ppg – would be averaging 23.8 points, let alone 9.8 rebounds and 4.8 assists too.