Pertinents if paywall challenged:
-> The Big East currently has the No. 6 conference RPI in the nation. Better than a power conference like the Pac-12. Better than football conferences like the American or Conference USA. Better than a traditional power conference like the Big West. Better than larger conferences like the Atlantic 10 or Coastal. Better than warm-weather conferences like the SoCon or the Southland.
The Big East — a mid-major conference where not every school has a full allotment of scholarships (a couple barely have half the allowed 11.7) — is the strongest conference no one is talking about, and a league that deserves multiple spots in the NCAA tournament, if not multiple at-large berths in the national tournament unless it’s officially being renamed the Southeast Invitational Tournament.
Receiving multiple at-large bids would be a first for the modern iteration of the conference. Since 2014 when the “Catholic Seven” split from the football-playing Big East schools to create the current landscape of the conference (minus Connecticut, who rejoined the Big East after the 2020 season), the conference has only received two at-large berths total. It got a pair of teams into the NCAA tournament in 2017 and then again last year when Xavier won the conference tournament and regular season champ UConn received an at-large berth.
Both times the Big East finished with a double-digit conference RPI rank. In 2017, the conference was No. 10. Last year, it finished with the 12th best conference RPI. In the 10 seasons since the Big East was remodeled, it has never finished ranked in the single digits. The 2017 season was an anomaly as the conference routinely finished No. 16-18 prior to Connecticut rejoining the league and 12th or 13th since.
But a rising tide has pushed the entire conference forward this season. Five teams entered the weekend inside the top 60 of the RPI, and the Big East’s top boats aren’t carrying massive cruise ship anchors at the bottom of the conference standings. The Big East, in recent history, has had a three-tier system of RPIs. It had a couple (sometimes three) top RPI teams in the top 70 or 80. The best team usually lands somewhere between 20-35, just outside hosting range. There has been a middle tier with teams in the 130-160 RPI range and then a bottom section with RPI anchors that have featured at least two teams with RPIs higher than 225 in the last four years.
This year, the anchor section is gone.
No longer is a single conference loss a devastator and potential backbreaker. Creighton entered the weekend with a 27-7 record and a top 40 RPI. It lost Saturday to the team with the lowest RPI in the Big East, Villanova. Last year, the Wildcats’ conference-worst RPI was No. 260, meaning a loss to them could mean a precipitous drop. Just playing the game was likely a bane to the RPI of the conference’s top teams.
Villanova (13-23, 4-7) currently has the Big East’s lowest RPI, but that’s at No. 170 after taking the 13-6 victory over the Blue Jays. A difference of 90 spots from last year! The Wildcats are more competitive, sitting just a win shy of last year’s total. Last year’s other RPI anchor, Butler, has already surpassed its 2023 win total and has the No. 164 RPI after finishing at No. 234 last season.
But no one has ascended quite like Georgetown. Routinely in the anchor tier of RPI, the Hoyas hadn’t had an RPI better than No. 191 since 2016 and had an average RPI of 215 from 2005 to 2021 with a high mark of No. 173. Under Edwin Thompson, the Hoyas have climbed to new heights finishing No. 138 in 2022, No. 135 last season and entered this weekend at No. 53.
Despite suffering the loss Saturday, Creighton head coach Ed Servais was quick to point out how improved the Big East is this season. “Villanova deserves a ton of credit. Georgetown deserves credit. Butler is a much-improved team. They’re going to beat some people down down the road too,” the veteran skipper said. “So I’m very pleased with how the league is progressing. And I believe it very well could be a two-bid league. It’s something that we’ve been working hard to become. Things are trending and a lot of these coaches deserve a ton of credit.” <-
