NEW YORK — In the final minutes of West Virginia’s 79-60 victory over St. John’s Saturday afternoon at Madison Square Garden, Da’Sean Butler drained another 3-pointer — his seventh of the day — over St. John’s forward Sean Evans.
All he could do was flash a smile and slowly backpedal down the court.
After struggling to [...]

It should come as no surprise that a number of Big East coaches are in favor of expanding the NCAA Tournament from 65 to 96 teams. After all, the 16-team Big East is the largest and, arguably, the deepest league in the nation.
A year ago, seven teams made the Big Dance, three were named No. [...]

Internet reports that Pittsburgh is moving to the Big 10 from the Big East are “100 percent’ false, according to multiple sources within the Pittsburgh athletic department.

E.J. Borghetti, Pitt’s associate AD for media relations, said this on his Twitter feed: “Now hear this: rumors on Internet message boards should be read for amusement purposes only, [...]

Now that top-ranked Kentucky has dropped from the ranks of the unbeaten, there will be a new No. 1 team in the land next Monday.
Along with No. 2 Kansas, two Big East teams — No. 3 Villanova and No. 4 Syracuse — are in the mix to take over the top spot in the wake [...]

Neither George Blaney nor Tracy Webster started this season as a head coach in the Big East Conference.
Both of them are now.
Blaney, the associate head coach at UConn, is presiding over the program while head coach Jim Calhoun takes an indefinite medical leave of absence. Webster became DePaul’s interim coach when former [...]

Five Big East teams are ranked in the top 12 of this week’s AP poll.
The conference also has two of the nation’s six remaining one-loss teams in Syracuse (18-1) and Villanova (16-1).
Eleven Big East teams are in action Wednesday, highlighted by a matchup of top-12 teams when Georgetown visits Pittsburgh at 7 p.m.. The Panthers [...]

Is it time to start talking about Scottie Reynolds as a potential Big East Player of the Year yet?
Reynolds scored 27 points Sunday when No. 4 Villanova beat No. 11 Georgetown, 82-77, at home.
Coming off a 36-point game against Louisville, Reynolds scored 12 of Villanova’s first 16 points in the game.
Down the stretch, he drove [...]

Coming off its Final Four appearance last season, Villanova was picked No. 1 in the Big East preseason coaches’ poll.
Marquette, which lost three key seniors to graduation, chimed in at No. 12.
Yet when the two teams played Saturday in Milwaukee, the Wildcats eked out a 74-72 victory thanks to a Scottie Reynolds jumper in the [...]

This was supposed to be the year things got better.
It was supposed to be the year that the Big East teams in the New York metropolitan area made dramatic strides in the standings.
Yet after Wednesday’s games Rutgers (0-2), Seton Hall (0-3) and St. John’s (0-2) are a combined 0-7 in league play.
Rutgers was blistered by [...]

The Big East basketball season is just a week old and already several key storylines have already developed.
 
• Syracuse and West Virginia, undefeated until last week, both suffered their first losses of the season. The Orange fell to Pittsburgh, 82-72, on Saturday in the Carrier Dome, and West Virginia was beaten soundly by Purdue, 77-62, [...]