Best of The Rest

\ It is early February, and it is time to start thinking about the NCAA tournament. This is what our guys live for. We love College Basketball, and making picks and predictions. But, I am going to talk about a possibility. This possibility may seem unreal. The Big East could potentially send 8 or 9 teams to the NCAA tournament. There are at least 7 teams that will be going for sure. Pittsburgh is (10-1) in conference, they are (22-2) overall. In my mind, they will be a #1 seed. Next you have Notre Dame (8-3) in the Big East, (19-4) overall. They will get over 20 wins, easy in. Villanova is 3rd in The Big East (7-3) in conference play, (19-4) overall. Another easy in. Syracuse is 5th in the conference, but they are the next obvious choice. They are (20-4) overall, and (7-4) in conference. Boeheim is looking at another trip to the big dance, as well as Rick Pitino. Cards are(18-5) overall and (7-3) in The Big East. Georgetown and UConn round out the obvious group of 7.
Now comes the hard part. 

The first team on the bubble is West Virginia. They are (15-8) overall and (6-5) in conference. They have 2 quality wins @ Georgetown, when they were #13, and against Purdue when the were #8. The Mountaineers may be out of luck though, out of their 7 remaining games, 5 are against ranked teams. 3 of them are against top 10 teams. There 2 non-ranked opponents are Depaul, and Rutgers. They need to get those wins, and at least 2 wins against the ranked opponents. They need to be over .500% in these last 7 games if they want a shot.
The next team on the bubble is The Cincinati Bearcats. They are (18-5) and (5-5) in The Big East. The problem is all of their conference wins have come against unranked teams. Cincinati has 4 ranked teams in their remaining 8 games. Only 1 of them is in the top 10.

Lastly on the bubble is Maquette. They are (14-9) and (5-5) in conference. They have 8 games remaining, they play only 2 ranked teams. The rest are against USF, St. Johns, Seton Hall twice, Providence, and Cincinati. Out of all these teams, I think Marquette has the best chance of making the big dance. They are well coached, the share the ball well, and they take very high quality shots. I think The Golden Eagles will round out the Big East pack on selection sunday.-Josh Neighbors