In 2006, the Big East Conference sent a then-NCAA-record eight teams to March Madness. In 2011, they broke their own personal best with 11. Not once, but twice, the Big East sent at least half of their teams dancing for a shot at the national title.
Since 2011, no conference has had more than nine representatives in a single March Madness. This is not going to be a one-by-one breakdown of how each team did that year. Instead, what I hope to highlight is what made the Big East’s record 11 NCAA Tournament bids special in college basketball history.
2006 was not the only year the Big East had half of its members in March Madness. The conference repeated the honor in 2008 and 2010, but making memorable history out of that seemed to be their kryptonite. Out of the 24 teams that went dancing in those three years, three of them reached the Elite Eight and only one of them, the 2010 West Virginia Mountaineers, reached the Final Four.
2011 is when the conference capitalized off their high number of bids and made memorable history.
Six Big East teams won a multiple-team event, with the UConn men’s basketball team’s Maui Invitational championship leading the way. In that tournament, the Huskies took down the No. 2 Michigan State Spartans at the time and subsequently upset the No. 8 Kentucky Wildcats. Three teams finished undefeated against non-conference foes. Another two lost exactly one.
Beyond the many Power Five wins in those MTEs, the Syracuse Orange also took down the Spartans while the St. John’s Red Storm knocked off the No. 3 Duke Blue Devils at Madison Square Garden. The Georgetown Hoyas grabbed a neutral-site win over the No. 9 Missouri Tigers in Kansas City. The West Virginia Mountaineers bested the No. 8 Purdue Boilermakers at home. Basketball Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino and the Louisville Cardinals, meanwhile, downed the No. 16 Butler Bulldogs and No. 20 UNLV Runnin’ Rebels at the KFC Yum! Center.
As of yesterday, three games separate third place from ninth in conference play during the 2023-24 season. That was also the case in 2010-11, when three games separated third place from 11th. Every team won a game (including the 1-17 DePaul Blue Demons) and lost at least three in Big East action that year.
Only the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the Cardinals remained undefeated at home in conference play. The 11 tournament teams all finished .500 or better in Big East competition and combined for just three losses to Big East teams who missed it. First-year head coach Kevin Willard and the Seton Hall Pirates delivered the upset in two of them.
Just one team that went dancing, the Villanova Wildcats, failed to make it to the second day of the Big East Tournament. The Marquette Golden Eagles benefited from the conference tournament the most because they reached the quarterfinals with an upset win over West Virginia and hit the 20-victory mark. UConn is a close second; their unprecedented five conference tournament wins in five days boosted their NCAA Tournament seeding.
On Selection Sunday, four teams were put in the East Regional, two went to both the Southeast and West Regionals and the other three made the Southwest Regional. All but two of those teams had a top-six seed. Four programs went home after the Round of 64 with three of them being upset by a lower-seeded program. Another five fell out of the bracket following the Round of 32. Two of those teams, the Cincinnati Bearcats and the Mountaineers, lost to Big East foes.
That left two teams that reached the second weekend. Marquette’s Cinderella run as an 11th-seed ended at the hands of the North Carolina Tar Heels. The third-seeded Huskies took down the second-seeded San Diego State Aztecs in the Sweet 16 then followed that up with a narrow victory over the fifth-seeded Arizona Wildcats in the Elite Eight. Once in Houston, Texas, Connecticut again clawed their way past Kentucky and bested the Butler Bulldogs for their third national championship.
For the conference, the Huskies winning the title felt like revenge for 2006, when they were one of two Big East teams in the Elite Eight. UConn ended the season on an incredible 11-game winning streak. That winning stretch and a return to the top etched another chapter in the conference’s rich basketball history.
Six total teams made the preseason AP Top 25, with four of them earning a ranking and two more receiving votes. By the time March Madness rolled around, seven teams had earned a spot in that season’s last AP Top 25 poll. Three additional teams received votes.
Looking ahead to the future, four Power Five conferences will have 16+ teams next season. It opens up the possibility of a second conference getting 11+ bids in one NCAA Tournament, but it is not going to feel the same. For starters, there is a strong possibility that at least one team would have to play in the First Four in Dayton, Ohio, should a conference receive that many bids. It happened with the Big Ten Conference in 2021 and 2022.
With more teams in one conference, there is also a higher risk of several teams on the bubble screwing themselves over when they play against each other. Lastly, it is rare that a conference can get at least 10 teams to win all of their marquee nonconference games and avoid any Quad Three or Four losses. A conference team could afford one or even two quality nonconference defeats, but the more losses they collect, the more sternly the selection committee will look at their tournament resume.
Even if a conference makes it work and somehow avoids having a team in the First Four, what the Big East did in 2010-11 will remain the standard when it comes to competitive conference depth.