What a turnaround from last year! Villanova, St. John's, and Butler are currently in the top 25 in the coaches polls, plus Georgetown, Creighton, and Providence were all there earlier this season. Also, Xavier is in the top 30 and Seton Hall in the top 50 of all 3 major computer rankings. While it's true that there are no truly dominating teams in the league this year (sorry Villanova, you don't quite qualify), there seem to be no bad teams at all (Marquette and Depaul are both quite capable.) Overall, the Big East has recently moved up to #2 in the Sagarin league rankings, ahead of the Big 10, ACC, PAC 12, etc. WOW! (So how did you all like the recent ESPN poll asking fans to pick the "best conference" in college basketball -- and not even including the Big East on their list!?)

In short, I'm REALLY looking forward to the conference season; it's wide open. At this point, I'll predict that Villanova wins the league with at least 3 losses, that Georgetown, St. John's, Butler, and Xavier finish in some order in the 2-5 spots and all make the big dance. I also see Seton Hall, Creighton and Providence finishing in the 6-8 spots with one of them making the dance, and Marquette and Depaul both pulling off a couple of big upsets somewhere along the way. There are some great days ahead for all us Big East fans.

Anyone else care to venture a prediction?

So here we are about 2/3 of the way through the conference season, and the Big E has absolutely lived up to my expectations for this year. So far, Providence has performed a bit better than I thought they would at the end of the non-conference season, as has Depaul, while St. John's has been a bit worse and Creighton worse that that. As I expected, Villanova has been tested several times, and lost twice so far. There have been plenty of upsets (Creighton over Xavier at X, Depaul over Seton Hall twice, both Providence and Xavier over Georgetown twice, etc.), but the standings today look pretty much like I predicted at Christmastime.

Okay, so what now? How many dance tickets are we gonna have? 5-7 seems almost certain, but after Villanova, Butler, and Georgetown, it's unclear who the others will be. Providence and Xavier look like dancers, but either could easily stumble in the next few weeks, and both St. John's and Seton Hall are still very much in contention. FWIW, I'll predict 6 teams get in, with Seton Hall not being able to overcome the sudden departure of Jaren Sina (I'd love to know what that's all about.) So I think the NIT will take them and maybe one other Big East team.

Once again, anyone else care to predict? 400+ views of my earlier post in this thread and not a single one of you answered my call for predictions?! C'mon now!

No doubt the Big East has out performed expectations this year. Congrats.

Now they just need to get the TV viewing public to recognize the quality of basketball and tune in.

i think we will get 5. although there is still a chance at 6

Yeah 5 seems very reasonable. I just am not sure about 6 because the loser of the St John's/Xavier game going to have a real uphill battle- especially if Xavier loses to Cincy and Butler this week. The winner of St John's/Xavier should be in I think, though they still would need 1-2 other wins at least.