St. John’s is, by its own marketing declaration, New York’s team. UConn might beg to differ when its hordes of supporters descend on the Garden for whatever event brings it to town. Either way, both command oodles of attention in the Big East’s epicenter.
And with both perceived as top-10 teams entering the 2025-26 season, the biggest question in the league naturally revolves around the Red Storm and the Huskies.
1. Are UConn and St. John’s on their own tier in the conference?
It’s tempting to think so, right? UConn won national titles in 2023 and 2024, and even in what qualifies as a down year still won 24 games and reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament. St. John’s is coming off a 31-5 season that earned the Red Storm a No. 2 seed, the program’s best postseason slot since 2000.
UConn still has Dan Hurley as its coach while St. John’s has Rick Pitino. Both evoke an era of the Big East when huge sideline personalities were the norm, one Pitino was part of during his time at Providence in the 1980s. And both have rosters to match.
The Huskies bring back 6-foot-8 redshirt senior forward Alex Karaban, 6-foot-4 junior guard Solo Ball and 6-foot-11 senior center Tarris Reed Jr., all mainstays from last year. And while the Red Storm’s lone returning starter is Zuby Ejiofor, the 6-foot-9 senior forward is in line to be one of the Big East’s top players.
If the names aren’t convincing enough, how about some numbers? National polls mean only so much, especially a preseason ranking in an era of widespread roster flux. As predictors, they’re faulty. As measures of perception, they’re as good as anything else available, and UConn is No. 4 in both the Associated Press and coaches polls, while St. John’s is No. 5 in the AP rankings and No. 6 according to the coaches. Creighton is also ranked, at No. 23 in both polls. Villanova, with five points in the coaches rankings, is the only other team in the league to even receive votes.
Go ahead and jot down Feb. 6 (in New York) and Feb. 25 (in Hartford, Conn.), the two dates St. John’s and Connecticut meet, as pivotal dates on the Big East calendar. Both should be plenty good, maybe even capable of national title runs. But chances are, someone else will insert themselves into the conference title conversation, too.
UConn returns three of last year’s mainstays in Tarris Reed Jr. (pictured), Alex Karaban and Solo Ball
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2. How much — if at all — do Creighton and Marquette dip after graduating program pillars?
Creighton has won at least one game in each of the last five NCAA Tournaments, and in each of those postseasons it had center Ryan Kalkbrenner manning the low post.
Shaka Smart led Marquette to an NCAA berth in his first four seasons with the Golden Eagles, and each of those teams included Kam Jones.
The 7-foot-1 Kalkbrenner departed Creighton second in school history in points (2,443), rebounds (1,146) and blocks (399), numbers enhanced a bit by an extra season of pandemic-era eligibility. Yet regardless of a statistical bump, it’s hard to encapsulate just how much he did to allow the Bluejays to function at both ends.
As for the 6-foot-5 Jones, he managed 2,044 points in four seasons, became a top-tier point guard as a senior and was a consensus second team All-America selection.
It might seem both of the Big East’s Midwest standard-bearers are in for a reset. Yet it ignores the consistency both programs have developed, and more importantly the identities both coaches have fostered during their tenures.
Creighton’s Greg McDermott fielded teams with efficient offenses long before Kalkbrenner’s career, and the Bluejays’ additions should help keep that tradition alive. Josh Dix, a 6-foot-6 senior, shot 42.2 percent from three-point range at Iowa last season. Former Howard wing Blake Harper, a 6-foot-8 sophomore, was a 40.4 percent outside shooter. Then there’s Owen Freeman, Kalkbrenner’s ostensible (but quite different) replacement. The 6-foot-10 junior shot 63.8 percent for Iowa last season, and he’ll be a central figure for Creighton once he’s fully recovered from summer knee surgery. There could also be a leap from 6-foot-10 sophomore Jackson McAndrew, the Bluejays’ top returning scorer who shot 35.4 percent from three in his first college season.
Marquette specializes in finding internal solutions to whatever problems arise. Smart opts for an ultra-judicious approach to adding transfers, which makes the Golden Eagles one of the few programs operating with a reliably high degree of continuity. When it works, it gets lauded as a “traditional” or “old-school” method of roster building. When it doesn’t, it’s “anachronistic” or “archaic.”
Marquette has won enough to qualify for the friendlier descriptions. And it’s why mainstays such as 6-foot-11 senior Ben Gold and 6-foot-5 senior Chase Ross, as well as 5-foot-10 junior Sean Jones as he returns from knee surgery, have the Golden Eagles bullish on remaining a Big East contender.
3. Just how soon will Kevin Willard turn around Villanova now that he’s back in his old stomping grounds?
There wasn’t anyone more at ease at the conference’s media day last week than Willard. He spent many of his formative years in New York, played in the Big East at Pitt, got his first head-coaching gig at Iona and then had a 12-year run at Seton Hall that saw the Pirates crank out six 20-win seasons out of seven to close out his tenure.
He moved on to Maryland, where a three-year stay included a pair of NCAA appearances. Last March, he made public his desire for more resources during the Terrapins’ postseason run, then bolted back to the Big East barely 48 hours after a Sweet Sixteen loss to Florida.
The opportunity to do so existed because Villanova was the definition of a midpack team during Kyle Neptune’s three-year tenure. The former Jay Wright assistant was 54-47 overall and 31-29 in the Big East, matching the total of conference losses Wright took in his final eight seasons with the Wildcats.
Neptune had one year of head coaching experience when he took over for Wright. Willard has considerably more as he tries to invigorate a program that has only two holdovers, 6-foot-4 junior guard Tyler Perkins and 6-foot-8 redshirt freshman forward Matthew Hodge.
Willard brought his top three assistants from Maryland and retained assistant Ashley Howard. Three former Terps players — 6-foot-9 senior forward Tafara Gapare, 6-foot-6 sophomore wing Malachi Palmer and 7-foot redshirt sophomore center Braden Pierce — followed Willard up Interstate 95.
And he also takes his dry wit to the Main Line, where his first conference game just happens to be a Dec. 23 trip to his old program, Seton Hall. “I’ve heard they’re going to retire my jersey,” Willard deadpanned.
It will take time to figure out whether Villanova would ever remotely entertain the thought of doing so. If Willard wins over Wildcats fans immediately, 6-foot-2 freshman point guard Acaden Lewis will probably have plenty to do with it. Lewis decommitted from Kentucky in April, and he’s already started both of Villanova’s exhibition games.
The most likely scenario for this season? Villanova doesn’t remind anyone of Wright’s great teams very often, not that anyone should expect it. But the Willard’s Wildcats will be more interesting than the program was the last three seasons, and that might just be enough to satisfy fans frustrated with bland mediocrity.
Kevin Willard has high hopes for Acaden Lewis, a rookie point guard with a tremendous upside
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4. Can any of the league’s third- and fourth-year coaches break through and reach the NCAA Tournament?
The clock starts ticking earlier and earlier for college basketball coaches, with Neptune’s ouster after three seasons serving as an in-conference indication. Four Big East coaches are in their third season or later without an NCAA berth, with varying degrees of urgency surrounding each.
Butler’s Thad Matta enters his fourth year back in Indianapolis and has yet to get to .500 in the Big East. He has a massively overhauled roster for the second consecutive season as the Bulldogs try to scrap their way into the top half of the conference.
Also entering his fourth year is Shaheen Holloway at Seton Hall. Unlike Matta, Holloway had a legitimate contender for an NCAA berth two seasons ago, only to get spurned. The Pirates wound up winning the NIT that spring, but graduation and transfer losses coupled with a spate of injuries sent the program spiraling to 7-25 last season.
Holloway revamped his roster about as much as Matta did, and both teams qualify as unknowns heading into this season.
Meanwhile, Ed Cooley’s third Georgetown team could build upon the progress of a year ago, when the Hoyas doubled their overall victory total (from nine to 18) and won twice as many conference games (eight) as they had in the previous three years combined.
Georgetown had two players selected in June’s NBA Draft (6-foot-8 wing Micah Peavy and 6-foot-10 center Thomas Sorber), but the Hoyas nonetheless should be older and deeper than last season. The return of 6-foot-2 junior guard Malik Mack and 6-foot-7 sophomore forward Caleb Williams helps, and the addition of 6-foot-4 junior guard KJ Lewis from Arizona should help fortify the defense.
The most interesting situation might belong to Providence’s Kim English. In his third year with the Friars after succeeding Cooley, English coaxed 21 victories and an NIT berth out of his first team despite losing 6-foot-7 wing Bryce Hopkins to injury early in Big East play. But when Hopkins barely played coming off injury and ultimately redshirted last winter, Providence’s season unraveled and it finished 12-20.
The Friars were caught being overly reliant on one guy last season, a mistake English clearly doesn’t intend to repeat. He believes Providence could thrive off exceptional depth, and if it can, he could oversee the program’s return to the NCAA Tournament.
5. Will Xavier’s nearly complete overhaul under new coach Richard Pitino work immediately?
If the Musketeers’ Oct. 18 exhibition game — a 75-70 loss to a Murray State team with even less continuity than Xavier has — is a fair preview, then probably not.
Pitino went through a program reboot just four years ago at New Mexico, and had a few holdovers as he set about rebuilding the Lobos. With the Musketeers, the only returning scholarship player (6-foot-3 redshirt junior Roddie Anderson III) didn’t play last season. So this will most likely be a season of establishing standards and culture, which doesn’t necessarily mean Xavier will be irrelevant. Pitino’s New Mexico teams improved their victory totals (overall and in the Mountain West) every year, and last season the Lobos won an NCAA Tournament game for the first time since 2012. Xavier is likely to make strides between now and March.
And it certainly doesn’t mean the Musketeers will be invisible. The two games against his father’s St. John’s team — Jan. 24 in Cincinnati and Feb. 9 in New York — are low-hanging fruit for those inclined to latch onto a simple narrative.
Still, an immediate NCAA berth is probably a reach, and that shouldn’t be the barometer of success for Xavier in Pitino’s first season.
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