Big East teams in NCAA Tournament: How standout basketball conference received just three spots in March Madness

Edward Sutelan

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Big East teams in NCAA Tournament: How standout basketball conference received just three spots in March Madness image

The Big East's teams are typically lined up and down the bracket when the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament field is unveiled.

Connecticut, Marquette, Villanova, Providence, Butler, Xavier, Georgetown, Creighton and Seton Hall have all been frequent flyers in the month of March, often punching their tickets to the dance at the end of the year.

This year? The number is quite a bit smaller. Sure, reigning national champion and Big East conference tournament champion UConn has made the field. But much of the remainder of the conference found itself on the outside looking in.

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Here's how many Big East teams made the field, and why that number is smaller than many expected.

Big East teams in the NCAA Tournament

That number would be just three: Connecticut, Marquette and Creighton. 

The remainder of the conference has been kept from reaching the dance. That includes 21-13 Providence, 20-13 St. John's, 20-12 Seton Hall and 18-15 Villanova.

The conference was expected to receive 6.38 implied bids, according to Lukas Harkins. That is a differential of three, the largest bid differential in the field.

Who benefitted the most? The SEC received 1.98 bids more than expected, and the Mountain West received 1.62 bids over expected. The Big 12 was the only other conference that received a number large enough to round up to one (0.69), while all others were in the negatives. When it came to losing out on expected teams, the Pac-12 was the next closest to the Big East at -0.61.

The decision to leave out so many Big East teams comes as a stunner not just because of their records, but because of how favorable many of the analytics were to those teams. Here's a look at the key omissions:

Team Record NET Ranking BPI Ranking KenPom Ranking
St. John's 20-13 32 24 25
Villanova 18-15 41 30 35
Providence 21-13 57 46 54
Seton Hall 20-12 67 69 62

St. John's and Villanova wound up being the highest and third-highest teams ranked by KenPom to miss the tournament, with only Wake Forest at No. 31 splitting up the Big East teams.

The coaches have certainly not held back when it came to blasting the NCAA for leaving out their teams. Both St. John's Rick Pitino and Providence's Kim English called out their teams' omissions.

The Big East has had a long track record of producing standout results when reaching March Madness. This year, the selection committee evidently thought only three were deserving of reaching the field.

Edward Sutelan

Edward Sutelan Photo

Edward Sutelan joined The Sporting News in 2021 after covering high school sports for PennLive. Edward graduated from The Ohio State University in 2019, where he gained experience covering the baseball, football and basketball teams. Edward also spent time working for The Columbus Dispatch and Cape Cod Times.