Villanova 2008-2009 Season Preview - Part 2

Beastly Big East! (11/11)

In most other years, this Villanova team with every major contributor coming back from a Sweet 16 run, would be picked to contend for the Big East title. Not this year. Nobody even picked Nova to crack the top 3. The coaches picked them to finish 5th and most of the national media has the Cats 6th or 7th. But this is not a slight against Jay Wright or the Villanova program, it is simply a testament to how strong and deep the Big East is this year. Jim Calhoun and Jim Boeheim, guys who have been coaching in the Big East for 20+ years, called it the best league they've seen in their tenures. Rick Pitino, who has been coaching the college game for 33 years called it "the strongest league in the history of college basketball."

Why so strong? Why this particular year? Well for starters, the Big East sent a record 8 teams to the NCAA tournament last year and if you think that is impressive, wait till this March, cause the league's top 10 teams have nearly EVERYBODY back. An unusually high number of Big East players spurned the NBA draft last spring, so this year's superstars are largely last years superstars...only with another year of experience under their belts. 19 of the league's top 25 scorers, 12 of its top 15 rebounders, and its top 7 in assists, steals and blocks are all back this year. As a result the Big East placed 12 of its players on the pre-season list of 50 candidates for the Wooden Player of the Year Award - the most prestigious individual award in college basketball. Think about that for a second. There are 31 conferences in Division 1 college basketball, yet the national media is saying that 25% of the best players in the country are in 1 conference! And the preseason polls back it up, with the conference getting a record 7 teams in the initial Top 25 and 2 more teams receiving votes.

It starts with Louisville at the top, who lost a couple big men but simply reloaded with the nation's best freshman big man, Samardo Samuels, who should make them even better than last year. UConn is close behind with every major contributor back from a Top 15 team last year, plus McDonald's All-American point guard Kemba Walker. Notre Dame has two first-team All-conference players back in Luke Harangody and Kyle McAlarney and Pitt returns 4 of 5 starters from a team that won 26 games last year. Marquette, despite losing head coach Tom Crean, still has the senior guard trio of Jerel McNeal, Dominic James & Wesley Matthews, who form perhaps the best backcourt in the conference. Georgetown is the only team among last year's tournament teams with major losses (Hibbert, Wallace & Ewing), but they still return 3 starters and added perhaps the nation's 2nd best freshman big man (Greg Monroe) to take Hibbert's place. Similarly, West Virginia lost Joe Alexander but reloaded with McDonald's All-American wing Devin Ebanks to fit in with the rest of last year's supporting cast. Syracuse lost Donte Green to the NBA draft, but returns everyone else from a team that went 9-9 in the Big East last year AND returns Eric Devendorf and Andy Rautins from knee injuries that kept them out last year. Finally, Providence has a new coach to go with a senior laden team with plenty of talent that never quite got over the hump under previous coach Tim Welch. Given all this talent and experience back, every night will be a dogfight and teams will have to scrap for wins but the ones that survive will be battle-tested for the NCAA tournament.