Big East Basketball questions: Key storyline, biggest surprise/disappointments

5. How many bids will this conference get in the NCAA Tournament?

Mauro

Marquette, Providence, UConn, Creighton, Xavier so 5.  Villanova is left out.

Freeman

It’s either five or six. There are four clear teams in, while a healthy Creighton should be fine. It comes down to whether Villanova gets in or not and even with Cam Whitmore back, may have dug itself too big a hole. So right now, I’m going with five teams.

Mullenix

Five – In the newest version of the Big East, the conference gets somewhere between four and six teams almost every season. It got seven in the field of 68 in 2017. This year is trending in that same direction. There are five teams in the top 35 of the NET Rankings at the moment with the sixth highest being Butler at 73. Seton Hall and Villanova are the only teams also inside the top 100. Assuming Creighton continues to play at the level it has with Ryan Kalkbrenner, it will be hard for one of the top five teams in the conference to miss the tournament.

Everyone else has some real work to do. Butler is 2-7 in Quad 1 and 2 opportunities and Seton Hall is 3-7. Villanova still doesn’t have a Quad 1 victory. Right now, there are five teams that are clearly tournament teams, and six that aren’t.