Its only one week into conference play in the Big East and it is easy to tell that it is going to be a wild ride for the members of this conference. A week ago Georgetown strolls into Storrs and beats #2 ranked UCONN 74-63, overcoming a 
7-block night for Hasheem Thabeet. Today #3 Pitt goes to Georgetown and rides Dujuan Blair’s 20 point 17 rebound performance to a 70-54 victory, ending Georgetown’s 29-game home winning streak. Over in Madison Square Garden unranked St. John’s defeated #10 Notre Dame today, 71-65. The Big East has already had 4 different teams ranked in the top 5 (UCONN, Louisville, Pitt, and Notre Dame).
Currently its looking like Pitt is the class of very talented Big East. Although right now they look to be the team to beat, I don’t see them winning the Big East. It is going to take consistent guard play to win the Big East, and outside of senior Levance Fields, Pitt is limited at the guard position. 
Pitt has 3 legitimate scorers(Sam Young, Blair, and Fields), meaning they are going to be able to score with anyone but without more than one quality guard it is going to be very difficult to win the Big East and even more difficult to make it to this years Final Four. Looking back to previous Final Four’s the key to those teams is guard play and although Levance Fields is a great point guard he had no other help at the guard position on this years team. Louisville is another of the Big East teams that was highly ranked coming into the year, but Louisville’s inept guard play has already reared its ugly head leading to 3 non-conference losses. Edgar Sosa has never been able to live up to his 30 point NCAA Tournament game against Texas A&M of 2 years ago and there isn’t another guard on this team that has the scoring and leadership ability required to lead an elite basketball team. Louisville’s leading assist men are the 6′6″ Forward, Terrence Williams, and the 6′9″ Power Forward, Earl Clark. Another problem with Louisville is that their super freshman, Samardo Samuels has been a “slow learner” according to Coach Pitino. Samuels has 15 turnovers in his last 4 games and is showing his inability to develop a face-up game, and he also struggled in the loss UNLV when they fronted him the entire game, finishing with 10 points on only 2-6 shooting.
Eliminating those two teams leaves UCONN and Notre Dame, but I believe that one other team
needs to be thrown into consideration for Big East Champion, and that team is Marquette. Marquette is an often-overlooked team by the media when talking about the Big East. To me that is a travesty. Marquette has arguably the most experienced team in the Big East, and they certainly have the most experienced (possibly most talented) guards in Wesley Matthews, Jerel McNeal, and Dominic James. The value of having 3 senior guards with the talent of Matthews, McNeal and James to lead your team cannot be measured. These three have been there before, they are never going to get rattled and are going to be leaders on and off the court. Marquette has 3 players averaging over 17 points a game! Throw in James’ 11.4 ppg to Matthews’ 19.4, McNeal’s 17.6 and Lazar Hayward’s 17.1 ppg and you have 4 players averaging double digits. Lazar Hayward is an excellent post player to compliment the three talented guards, he can bang down low with the Thabeet’s of the Big East (9.2 rpg) but he can also stretch the defense because he is averaging 1.4 three-pointers made per game.
Although you are expecting to see UCONN, Pitt, Georgetown and Notre Dame at the top of the Big East don’t be surprised if you see Marquette’s name hanging around the top of the conference. One thing is certain, that is that it is going to be a wild ride in the Big East this year, and I for one cannot wait to sit back and watch.
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Good stuff, I agree with a lot of this Jake. Here’s how I rank the Big East Teams finishing…
1. Georgetown … not many weaknesses
2. Pitt … FT Shooting will cost them a couple valuable games
3. Uconn … Price needs to be a little less selfish
4. West Virginia … Great defense but bad FT shooting and average offense won’t cut it
5. Villanova … Only one senior but also no freshmen, nothing spectacular here just get it done
6. Louisville … a poor mans West Virginia (Great defense but piss poor offense and bad shooting from the stripe)
7. Marquette … like you said, great guard play but their defense is like a 3-year old laptop, it will work okay but youd rather have a better model.
8. Syracuse … This team is very similar to Pittsburgh but a year behind. I can see Syracuse being one of the top 3 in the Big East next season.
9. Notre Dame … No defensive presence at all, just won’t get it done in crunch time
And the rest of the teams are a giant leap below these in my opinion, maybe Cincy or Providence sneak into the top 9
If I had to say how the Big East would play out today, here is how I see it:
1. UCONN
2. Pitt
3. Marquette
4. Notre Dame
5. Georgetown
6. Syracuse
7. West Virginia
8. Louisville (my how the mighty have fallen, just not as good as advertised)
9. Villanova