In all candor the post breakup BE thrived because of Nova (or more specifically Jay Wright).
If you were to look at the then conference as a whole and replace Villanova with a second Marquette, Creighton or whoever, the result would be a hair better than a mid-major. I'll even go so far as to claim a significant contributing factor to the conference as a whole receiving so little respect since Jay retired is that Nova basically fell off the map after he retired and all goodwill built during his tenure dissipated almost immediately.
During a span where quite a few schools that nobody would have expected ended up in the final four; South Carolina, Loyola of Chicago, Texas Tech, Florida Atlantic, Miami Fl, San Diego St, NC State, even Syracuse as a ten seed and UCLA as an eleven seed made it to the final four but no BE school other than Villanova under Jay Wright and UConn under Dan Hurley was able to get that far.
I don't believe getting that far is easy, but the fact remains that quite a few schools from other power conferences have made it along with a few from lower conferences. The BE is going to need to consistently have a few schools each year capable of making deep runs (something close to what we did in 2023, even if the national championship were to be replaced with a regional final team).
Many BE fans like to claim that the conference as a whole is equal to at least a couple of the power conferences but the reality is that since the split the conference has never has had close to the depth that the power conferences have had.
