Playing Pitt at the Pete is possibly one of the toughest road games in the conference…so to see Rutgers come and beat a depleted, but still very solid, ranked Pitt team this weekend a few days after retiring ranked Villanova at home shows that it’s not just a fluke. Will the Scarlet Knights make the BE Tourney? Probably not. They are 10-11, still under .500 with only 8 OOC wins and a 2-6 record in the conference. But those two wins are against top ranked teams…showing that they have recruited some good young talent and will use this to propel into the future.

This, however, is a shining example of the state of the new Big East. Rutgers has basically no history in basketball. They are the doormat of the league and teams such as Syracuse, Georgetown, Connecticut, etc. rely on Rutgers to help them through an otherwise brutal conference schedule. Problem is that Rutgers is a newly resurgent football school and thanks to the new Big East, actually has some legs when venturing out into the basketball recruiting market. It’s the same thing in Tampa and other Big East cities. Schools which were down are now going to rise back up. Teams that never had risen will rise out of oblivion.

The Big East has become a super conference and this year it’s all becoming clear. No win is a guaranteed win. While this means we will witness incredible games through the beginning of March, it also will test how much understanding the selection committee has. You can argue that at least 10 BE teams are worthy of the NCAA’s right now. Conn (23), WVU (32), Louisville (36), Syracuse (40), ND (41) and Providence (50) are unranked teams that are in the RPI top 50. What’s interesting is that only Louisville and ND are in the top third of the BE standings, and that’s with 2 conference losses.

We’ve all talked about this before, but these latest victories by RU, a team that didn’t even have one conference win before beating Villanova last week, show us that we have no idea what to expect in March. If we see less than 7 teams in the tournament this year, the buzz about splitting is going to become louder and louder. Just my 2 cents.