Something old, something new at Big East Tournament

A YEAR ago, the 15-team Big East sent eight teams to the NCAA Tournament. Five of them - eventual champion Louisville, Pittsburgh, Syracuse (Final Four), Notre Dame and Cincinnati - are now playing in other conferences. As is Connecticut, which was ineligible. And even West Virginia, another four-letter fixture that had left a year earlier.

That's how change works sometimes. Only Villanova and Creighton, one of the three newcomers in what's become a reconfigured 10-team alignment, are in the Top 25.

Five different Big East teams made seven trips to the Final Four the past five seasons. Again, only Villanova from 2009 remains.

The 35th conference tournament tips off tomorrow night at Madison Square Garden. If nothing else, this one figures to be different. The only time since 1997 that the Big East sent fewer than five teams to the Madness was 2003, when the number was four. And that became much less of a big deal anyway, when Syracuse wound up going all the way.

About the only guarantee at the moment is that Villanova will be a No. 1 or 2 seed in the NCAA's East Regional and should be shuffling off to Buffalo for its second-round opener. Xavier, St. John's, Providence and Georgetown are all, to varying degrees, on the ever-popular bubble. Which might make for an interesting 4 days. Marquette, which was picked to finish first in the preseason poll, needs to hoist the trophy to get in for the ninth consecutive season. The Golden Eagles were in the Elite Eight last March, and Sweet 16 the two seasons before that.

"It's the postseason, the Big East Tournament," Georgetown coach John Thompson III, whose team was picked to finish second and ended up seventh, said yesterday on a conference call. "We're headed to New York. So everyone's excited.

"Everybody goes through growing pains in Year 1. We're one of the better leagues in the country. I don't know if too many teams in the country want to play the teams in the middle part or bottom of the Big East."

The last time one of the seven holdovers won the conference title was Georgetown, in 2007, the year it went to a Final Four. St. John's hasn't won it since 2000. Villanova got its lone title in 1995. Providence won its only one the year before that. And Seton Hall last won the year before that. Marquette, which joined in 2005-06, has never been to a title game. DePaul, which came in at the same time, is 1-6 at MSG. The win was in 2009 as a 16 seed.

Still . . .

"This tournament has always been one of my favorite times of the year," said Villanova's Jay Wright, who should be the favorite to win the coach of the year award when it's announced tomorrow. "And I know everybody at Villanova loves going to New York and Madison Square Garden during this week.

"It's going to be like anything else in its first year. It will be dissected, because that's what our industry does. We've got to give it a couple of years. We put everything togeter so quickly [after breaking away from the football schools]. It takes time. Let's see how this first one goes. We'll make adjustments as we go.

"What's most important is, we know there's stability. We've got Madison Square Garden. We've got schools that traditionally come to New York City. They're all basketball schools with a lot of alumni in that area. Then we've got to build on it."

No, it won't be the same. Just as it can never be the glory era of the 1980s again. But it can continue to be a pretty good thing. And for a transitional year, at least it does have the probable national player of the year in Creighton's Doug McDermott. The record for most points in a game in this tourney is 42, by Coatesville High's Donyell Marshall for UConn against St. John's in 1994. So why not ring in this new era properly?

"In a best case, we could get five [teams in the NCAAs], depending on how it plays out," Wright said. "I think we'll get at least three. And if we do get five, it probably wouldn't be good for Villanova this week. But that could happen."

And that, all things considered, wouldn't be bad.