Will anyone challenge UConn, St. John’s in men’s basketball?

The Dan Hurley, Rick Pitino rivalry has leveled up every year since their initial meeting in the first round of the 2023 NCAA Tournament, when Hurley was looking for his first tournament win at UConn and Pitino’s Iona team was hoping for an upset.

UConn won that game, 87-63, and started its record streak of 13-consecutive March Madness wins by double digits, claiming two national titles along the way.

Pitino moved on to St. John’s, fertilizing the rivalry in the Big East, and his first Johnnies team put up a fight but fell three times during the Huskies’ historic 2023-24 season. Last year it was the Red Storm that pulled away from the pack in the Big East, matching UConn’s record of 18 conference wins, including a perfect 2-0 record against the Huskies at Gampel Pavilion and Madison Square Garden before both programs fell in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Successful offseasons for both programs have turned the heat up another level and made for – at least – two must-see matchups during the 2025-26 campaign.

“It’s UConn and it’s St. John’s and it’s MSG, and I don’t know where we’re dragging them next year. We lost in Gampel so that probably means I’ll drag them back to the XL Center (now PeoplesBank Arena) where we beat them the year before,” Hurley said last week at the NBA Draft. “It’s great for college to get eyeballs during the season, it’s great for the Big East to play a couple of the biggest games in the college basketball season.”

UConn’s offseason haul – four freshmen, two transfers – ranks 10th in the country by 247Sports. St. John’s, with the No. 1 transfer portal class highlighted by three former five-star recruits (Ian Jackson, Joson Sanon, Dillon Mitchell), ranks 22nd for its overall haul of seven transfers and two freshmen.

Creighton was the only other Big East team in the top 25, at No. 25 with six four-star commits, five of them transfers, after losing the veteran duo of Ryan Kalkbrenner and Steven Ashworth. Hudson Greer, a four-star wing from Montverde Academy, could be the next star in Omaha.

It seems to be a clear top three.

“Obviously there’s a resource investment in places like ours and St. John’s, Creighton. I just think in this NIL place that we’re at right now, if you’re not at a certain threshold in terms of what you’re going to spend in terms of the roster, it’s tough to compete,” Hurley said.

“We want to be strong from one through 11, that was the beauty of the SEC last year, you’re playing all Quad One and Quad Two games the whole year because the league is so strong that you never take bad losses and you only have chances for good wins the whole year. It just gives you so many chances to enhance teams getting in the tournament, improving their seeding. But I think St. John’s is gonna be really good, we’re gonna be really good and Creighton is always gonna be there.”

Could anyone else challenge the top of the league?

Marquette has been in the top four in each of the last three years under Shaka Smart. But the Golden Eagles lost three of their best players in Kam Jones, David Joplin and Stevie Mitchell, and with Smart’s heavy focus on internal development, they again stayed out of the transfer market completely. Still, with four four-star recruits coming in, Marquette’s incoming class ranks 47th in the nation.

“I think everyone always doubts whether Shaka has done enough with the portal and all that stuff, but Shaka’s got the culture and the returners,” Hurley said.

After Thomas Sorber came up short in Big East Freshman of the Year voting to UConn’s Liam McNeeley, Ed Cooley warned that if he returned to Georgetown, the Hoyas would be cutting the nets in MSG as 2026 Big East Tournament champs. Sorber went into the NBA Draft, where he was picked 15th overall, and Cooley brought in six transfers – though he lost out on his former Providence star, Bryce Hopkins, to Pitino and St. John’s.

The Hoyas’ incoming class, which includes former Husky Isaiah Abraham, former St. John’s center Vincent Iwuchukwu and experienced guards Langston Love (Baylor) and KJ Lewis (Arizona), ranks 66th in the nation ahead of Cooley’s third season in D.C.

Back in Providence, where Kim English is trying to build the program back up after losing Hopkins, the last remaining star from Cooley’s tenure, the Friars are bringing in a haul that includes five transfers and two four-star freshmen – the third-best incoming class in the Big East and 36th nationally.

New coaches – Kevin Willard at Villanova and Richard Pitino at Xavier – bring momentum to their respective programs with brand new rosters as they each added 10 players this offseason.

The Wildcats brought in former UConn recruit Acaden Lewis and an extremely experienced point guard in Devin Askew, who has played in 110 college games over five years at four different schools, Villanova being the fifth, as part of a haul that includes four four-star recruits. “They’re gonna be back to their rightful place shortly,” Hurley said, complimentary of the Willard hire.

Richard Pitino, son of Rick, makes for an interesting dynamic in the league as the former New Mexico coach looks to pick up where Sean Miller left off with the Musketeers, albeit with an entirely new roster. His incoming class is ranked 67th nationally.

In Year Four at Butler, Thad Matta saw his roster undergo another significant overhaul as he lost Jahmyl Telfort, Pierre Brooks, Patrick McCaffery and big Andre Screen to expired eligibility. Four-star freshmen Azavier Robinson and Jack McCaffery, brother of Patrick and son of Iowa coach Fran McCaffery, highlight a nine-man haul ranked 42nd in the nation.

Don’t forget about DePaul, where Chris Holtmann breathed new life into the program last season. The Blue Demons added former St. John’s big man Khaman Maker and former Tulane forward Kaleb Banks as part of a seven-man incoming class (five transfers) that ranks 64th nationally.

What about Seton Hall? Shaheen Holloway and the Pirates have struggled in the new NIL world, but they’ve still taken UConn down at home four years in a row. They brought in four transfers this offseason, but have a steep climb to get out of the Big East’s basement.

The league has seen two complete opposite approaches to roster building in this new landscape.

Pitino went all-in on the transfer portal, doing away with Big East Player of the Year RJ Luis Jr. and paying top dollar to retool his lineup with top recruits. Smart remains totally out, almost stubborn in his reliance on culture and player development. Hurley and the Huskies are somewhere in the middle.

What works best?

“Everything is so new, I guess we’ll find out what the better approach is,” Hurley said. “Is it to try to hold onto as much culture and as much of the relationships and the connection and the chemistry that you have when you bring people back? Or are we truly at a point where you’ve got to look at it like just a one year at a time, let me put just the absolute best roster I can put together for one year?

“I think the model for us (at UConn) is, we’ll continue to be recruiting high school players and doing it more through development and continuity, and sprinkle in an occasional need in the portal when we’re desperate. But I would rather have that connection with team and development process with players, still run a program that develops people over the course of years and time.”