Just a year ago, the Big East saw St. John’s and Seton Hall snubbed from the Big Dance while UConn, Marquette and Creighton were the three teams that represented the Big East in the 2024 NCAA Tournament.
While there are some controversies around this year’s field, the NCAA selection committee did redeem itself from the past year. Four of those teams were locked into the tournament no matter what.
“It was good to see [the Big East] get the number we deserved this year,” UConn head coach Dan Hurley said.
Along with the three that went dancing last year, St. John’s won both the regular season and tournament titles in the Big East and ended up as a No. 2 seed for the first time since the 1999-00 season with head coach Mike Jarvis patrolling the sidelines. This time, it is Hall of Famer Rick Pitino coaching the Red Storm. He just won the first Big East Coach of the Year award in his decorated career. They are led by RJ Luis Jr., the first Johnnie to win Big East Player of the Year since Walter Berry in 1985-86.
Marquette ended up as a No. 7 seed after back-to-back seasons of being on the 2-seed line, the best seeding in program history. Behind Kam Jones, who made the AP All-American Second Team, the Golden Eagles took a step back from the last two seasons. Without Tyler Kolek and Oso Ighodaro, head coach Shaka Smart relied on Jones, his best scorer on the team during those seasons. That has paid off tremendously.
UConn is the defending back-to-back national champion and has a challenging task on its hands with the program’s fourth appearance in the 8-9 game. Led by two-time national champion Alex Karaban, the Huskies have not lived up to the expectations that they could go for a three-peat. However, they are still in the tournament with a chance and have been playing significantly better as of late (outside of a poor outing vs. Creighton in the Big East semifinals).
“I think [five Big East teams making the NCAA Tournament] shows the strength of our conference,” Solo Ball said. “I feel like we don’t have as many teams too, so I think you also got to take that into account. But I mean, it’s just also a good feeling to see other teams there, in your conference, representing.”
Creighton made its fifth trip to the championship game of the Big East Tournament last Saturday night. However, the team has not been able to get over the hump and win the conference tournament. Last season, Creighton met its program-best seeding in the NCAA Tournament with the No. 3 seed. They are stuck in an 8-9 matchup against Louisville, a team ranked No. 10 in the AP Poll. However, with four-time Big East Defensive Player of the Year Ryan Kalkbrenner, the ceiling is high for the Bluejays.
“Seeing us, St. John’s, Creighton, Marquette in [the NCAA Tournament] too, I know that we’ll represent the Big East strong and so will they,” Alex Karaban said.
Xavier just barely made the cut, playing in the final game of the First Four play-in games on Wednesday night in Dayton, Ohio. Fans hope that they can have a Cinderella run as the Musketeers did during the 2016-17 season, reaching the Elite Eight. With Zach Freemantle finally healthy and transfer guard Ryan Conwell leading the charge, head coach Sean Miller has his team able to bust brackets.
“It was great to see Xavier [get in],” Hurley said. “If you’ve watched Xavier play…they’ve clearly been a [NCAA] tournament team.”
Big East NCAA Tournament Schedule:
No. 11 Xavier vs. No. 11 Texas (9:10 p.m., truTV)
No. 9 Creighton vs. No. 8 Louisville (Thursday, 12:15 p.m., CBS)
No. 2 St. John’s vs. No. 15 Omaha (Thursday, 9:45 p.m., CBS)
No. 7 Marquette vs. No. 10 New Mexico (Friday, 7:25 p.m., TBS)
No. 8 UConn vs. No. 9 Oklahoma (Friday, 9:25 p.m., TNT)