INDIANAPOLIS — The Big East season has to start somewhere. Might as well be in the middle of a snowstorm. After all, this isn’t the Sun Belt.
Yes, here comes Providence to play Butler Saturday in the league’s first game. The white stuff is coming down outside at the rate of nearly an inch an hour, but this the Big East. You expect winter the same way you expect a demolition derby in the paint, so the customers show up at Hinkle Fieldhouse is actually pretty full. While everyone is taking off their ski caps and gloves, there’s time to ponder the state of this conference as league play opens.
There have been theories the Big East might have lost a step. Too much good and bad news.
The good news…this was the conference on a March Madness trophy binge from 2016-2024. The league picked off four of the eight national championships — two each for Villanova and UConn. Villanova advanced to a third Final Four, Creighton and Xavier were in the Elite Eight. The Big East went a glittering 22-6 in the NCAA Tournaments in 2023 and 2024. Thank you, UConn, and friends.
The bad news…the conference did not get a single team past the first weekend in the tournament last March, only the third Big East-less Sweet 16 in 32 years.
The good news…the Big East should certainly have a voice at the grownup’s table, so long as UConn is around. The current Huskies are deep and talented and look every inch what a championship contender should be. And in Storrs, they ought to know what one looks like. They just went through playing five ranked opponents in 25 days and defeated four of them, none on their home court. Odd thing, though, the only home game of the five was a loss to Arizona. Anyway, UConn is a solid No. 5 in the latest AP poll rankings with its 4-1 record against the top-25.
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The bad news…the rest of the conference is 1-10 against ranked opponents. The only other member in the AP poll is St. John’s at No. 22. UConn, St. John’s and Villanova are the lone Big Easters in the top 49 of the current KenPom rankings. Creighton has gone from a top-25 spot to a 5-5 record. Marquette is 5-6 and has taken a battering from the Big Ten, losing by 23 points to Indiana, 20 to Wisconsin and Purdue and seven to Maryland. Those two perennials had a devil of a time against neighbors. Creighton’s 71-50 drubbing by Nebraska was the worst against its in-state cousin in 30 years and Marquette’s 96-76 pounding by Wisconsin was the most lopsided rout in the series for the Badgers since 1952.
Ok, is this league in retreat or not? Wait a second, let’s check in on Providence and Butler. Looks like a close game. We’ll let them continue while studying the Big East a bit more.
Yep, UConn is a handful, with all those quality wins — BYU, Illinois, Kansas, Florida — and such depth that Alex Karaban is the only player averaging more than 29 minutes a game. “We’ve got wings, we’ve got point guards, we’ve got two excellent centers,” coach Dan Hurley said. “When all is said and done and we’re fully healthy, I think it’s a pretty formidable group.”
St. John’s struggled early with an 0-3 start against ranked opponents, but might still be the force everyone expected if coach Rick Pitino can fix the defense. In the recent win over Ole Miss, the Red Storm forced 20 turnovers and Zuby Ejiofor blocked eight shots. In the 91-64 romp over Iona Saturday, Ejiofor had eight more swats and the Gaels didn’t shoot over 40% from the field. He’s only the second Division I player in 11 years with consecutive eight-block games. That’s trending in the right direction.
“It starts with better perimeter defense, better paying attention to scouting. Zuby is obviously a good rim protector for us defensively,” Pitino said. “We got to keep our turnovers down, but I like what I see. I like the improvement.”
Just look at Seton Hall. The Pirates crashed to 7-25 last year. They reached seven wins this season on Nov. 26. And now the team picked to finish last in the Big East is 10-1 and coming off a 22-point thrashing of fellow New Jerseyian Rutgers. Seton Hall also owns 11-point wins over NC State and at Kansas State. The Pirates have at least nine steals in every game this season. They’re a two-point loss to Southern California away from being perfect.
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More promising news: Villanova walloped Pittsburgh by 18 points Saturday to improve to 8-2, handing out 20 assists with only three turnovers. DePaul rallied from 14 points down to win at Wichita State to go to 8-3 and has held back-to-back non-conference opponents under 60 points for the first time in six years. Xavier has won five in a row to start 8-3, beat cross-town chum Cincinnati and owns the nation’s best assist-turnover ratio. Georgetown is 7-3.
So on paper, many of the numbers seem fine. But what’s it look like when the league actually goes on the court? Let’s get back to see how Butler and Providence turned out in the Big East opener…wait a second. They’re still playing?
Right. And they wouldn’t stop until Butler had won 113-110 in double overtime.
Would you believe a game with 223 total points, 30 lead changes, 20 ties, and only 16 combined turnovers?
Would you believe an exhausting duel that was a one-possession game the entire final 23 minutes except for 12 seconds?
Would you believe four different players scoring at least 26 points, including Jason Edwards, who came off the Providence bench to put up 32?
It was a fiery struggle that lasted 2 hours and 37 minutes and could very well end up on the list of 10 best games of the season. If the Big East is a little tattered at the moment, the conference opener certainly didn’t look like it.
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“I don’t follow a whole lot of other leagues. I know that’s two really really, really good college basketball teams that just competed out there.” Butler coach Thad Matta said.
“This league is a beast,” Providence coach Kim English said, who wanted no part of any consolation that just participating in an epic like this might soothe the hurt of the final score. “No, no, no. Very, very, very disappointing.”
Matta had predicted on a call-in show earlier in the week that this matchup would be highly entertaining for fans. “I didn’t let them down,” Matta said after the game. “I want to say thank you to the people who made it out in this.”
“We did what we wanted to do today, which was win the basketball game. It took 50 minutes to do it. This league…you’ve got to go play, man. You’ve got to make plays like we made down the stretch today and you’ve got to do it over and over and over and over again.”
Hard to imagine a more compelling way to start the conference portion of the season for a league anxious to prove it hasn’t lost its bite. Outside, the snow kept coming. It’s winter, it’s cold, it’s hard and unforgiving. It’s Big East time.
