NEW YORK -- This is the 45th season of the Big East, a nondescript mile marker that nonetheless isn't taken lightly by many around these parts. To honor the occasion, the conference has brought back its initial logo and will be using it for retro-style marketing throughout this season, if not beyond. (That block-letter emblem better be on the court come March at Madison Square Garden.)
As we get closer to the start of the 2024-25 campaign (now 12 days out), anticipation grows for what paroxysms this conference will predictably produce over the next five months. There is nothing in college sports like the Big East. It's a league with a slew of (and I'm saying this with love) regionally arrogant and insane fan bases that only amplify their insanity by being extremely online. (And Georgetown isn't even good again, yet.)
To be at this point, 45 years in overall but a little more than a decade after the Big East's metempsychosis, is testimony to the power of basketball in the Northeast and all attached precincts. This league means a hell of a lot to a hell of a lot of people. The conference has settled well into the contrasting position of being the only basketball-first league at the high-major level. It's kept its standard and stature in college basketball more than a decade after college football fractured the well-established previous iteration.
Villanova's NCAA title in 2016 marked the moment that validated the Big East in the broad scope moving forward. Now? The conference has won four of the last eight men's NCAA titles and put a team in the Final Four in five of the past eight tournaments. If measuring championships is the biggest barometer for success, the Big East has been the best in recent history thanks to Villanova and UConn restoring so much authority.
"When we came into this, I think there were people who weren't sure if a basketball league could make it in the football universe," Big East commissioner Val Ackerman told CBS Sports. "It's hard to do what we're doing, very difficult, and the terrain is shifting."
The conference crucially held on to the University of Connecticut after Big 12 president Brett Yormark and UConn engaged in discussions over the summer about possibly teaming up. But Yormark didn't have the votes, and so the Huskies remain a Big East partner for the foreseeable future. There's no guaranteeing it will stay that way in perpetuity, but keeping UConn on the roster makes the Big East as appealing and marketable as the league is capable of being.
With UConn operating as the best program in the sport and Dan Hurley the reigning national coach of the year, the top of the conference again looks strapping. This league is all but guaranteed to provide at least one true national championship contender. Hurley turned down the Lakers job in June and opted to stick with college basketball, a testament to his love of the game and the necessary signal that he was up for chasing a near-unthinkable third straight national title. With two-time national champion UConn as the expected and rightful unanimous preseason favorite, things are good, but they can get even better. In a broad sense, there's reason to believe that they will over the next six months.
For all the headlines and credibility UConn brings, the Big East also has Marquette flying high under Shaka Smart and a top-20 Creighton program led by Greg McDermott that's enjoying its greatest stretch in school history. Here's the issue: only those three schools that made last season's NCAA Tournament. Connecticut was a No. 1 seed, Marquette a No. 2, Creighton a No. 3. The three bids tied for the lowest the conference has ever received dating back to 1979. The league has combined to win 22 games in the past two NCAA Tournaments, in spite of Seton Hall, St. John's and Providence getting boxed out last March.
Providence was held out despite six Quad 1 wins. St. John's was snubbed despite ranking top-35 in a variety of metrics. Seton Hall missed the field despite winning 13 Big East games and being only one of three teams to knock off Connecticut. They all had logical things working against them, of course. Providence played 11 Quad 4 games. St. John's was 10-12 vs. Quad 1 and Quad 2 opponents. Seton Hall was 50th or lower in many metrics. (SHU responded to its snub by winning the NIT, a laudable achievement unto itself. The Pirates finished with 25 wins. They were picked 10th in the conference this year. Something tells me that will prove incorrect.)
Blunt conversations between coaches and Big East administrators took place during the offseason about what needs to be done to avoid ever seeing a three-bid season again. Ironically, the Big East ranked No. 2 in KenPom.com's conference ratings last season. Objectively, it was a great league. But greatness is measured by NCAA Tournament appearances and success, or lack thereof. If the selection committee was the arbiter, then there was a wide gulf in the league that had to be accounted for. Thus, the Big East hired a basketball analytics company (HD Intelligence) as a consultant to guide them with nonconference scheduling.
"My sense is that we've made some inroads on that," Ackerman told me Wednesday. "They key for us to stay out of Quad 4 territory. If we can lift up the bottom, so we're Q3, so games against those Q3 teams aren't having the same impact as if they were Q4, I think that alone is going to help us this year lift up [our NET rankings]."
Some teams scheduled more aggressively than others for the season ahead. DePaul starts over with Chris Holtmann, who might well prove to be the school's best hire since Ray Meyer. We'll see. Ed Cooley is in Year 2 at Georgetown; nobody knows how big of a jump the Hoyas will or won't take. But for the other nine schools, you can make the case that they have realistic hopes of making the NCAA Tournament based on current roster or recent history. All of them won't, of course, but doubling to a six-bid 2025 isn't outrageous.
Behind the Huskies in the preseason poll released Wednesday: Creighton, Xavier, Marquette and St. John's. They're programs coached by four men who've won more than 2,000 games combined. Collectively, the coaching in this conference is really good, in addition to being diverse in age, race and achievement. Aside from current Hall-of-Famer Rick Pitino and future Hall-of-Famer Hurley, Butler's Thad Matta has coached in a national championship game and been in multiple Final Fours. Marquette's Smart has made a Final Four as well, of course. McDermott at Creighton, Seton Hall's Shaheen Holloway and Xavier's Sean Miller have all coached in the Elite Eight. And though Kyle Neptune is yet to cut through as a head coach, he was a pillar on the best Villanova teams Jay Wright had.
Since reforming, the Big East has ranked No. 2 or No. 3 at KenPom in seven of its 11 seasons. Connecticut is king, but Marquette, Creighton, St. John's, Xavier, Providence and others are all bringing reinforcements. It's not just coaching, but player talent. Ryan Kalbrenner (Creighton), Alex Karaban (Connecticut), Kam Jones (Marquette), Bryce Hopkins (Providence) and Kadary Richmond (St. John's) could all conceivably play their way to All-America seasons.
The trifecta of Selection Sunday snubbery obviously didn't sit well with anyone in the Big East. Even as we ready for a new season, I still sensed some of that frustration on Wednesday. Ready to move on, but ready to answer for last season's misses. UConn made up for much of it by taking a second straight title and carrying the conference's banner once more. Now it's time for most of the rest of the Big East to step up in order to keep up. It's going to be a very competitive season of college basketball. For the Big East to remain in the upper echelon, the standard has to be lifted -- and met -- from top to bottom.