1st round of NCAA tourney over...BE big winner

Here is the fact. The current field of 65 teams in the NCAA tournament have been whittled down over 4 days to just 32, and after today and tomorrow that will be down to just 16.

Of those 32 still standing, 7 of those teams are from the Big East conference. The best winning percentage of all of the conferences. And were it not for a late overtime last second shot, the Big East might have had all 8 of their 8 teams move into the 2nd round.

And what is even more impressive is that the Big East teams are doing it the way they have done it all year in the conference. With NASTY, stifling, suffocating defense that just grinds opponents down and into confusion, and dominating the backboards.

Without question the Big East has proven that it is THE best college basketball conference in the nation. Bar none.

Fans of opposing conferences and sports media wonks nationwide can talk about conference RPI and Sagarin ratings all they want, and how the PAC-10 was a 'better' conference, or that the ACC had the 'best' two teams. The Big East has proven it where it matters most. On the court, against the best competition in the nation.

Will the Big East continue to do that? Honestly, probably not. But when one conference makes up almost 25% of the TOTAL top 32 teams in the nation, can anyone deny that the Big East is THE best conference in the nation?

The facts do not lie. Especially when you consider how close, tight, lucky, or downright awful, some of the other conferences teams have played against competition that they were supposedly much better than. I.e. Duke vs Belmont, Vanderbuilt vs Siena.

Again, I doubt whether the Big East will be able to continue that pace, primarily because the competition against some of the more elite "teams" in the nation will force that number down. But that does not dilute the fact of how strong the Big East conference has proven itself. And that was proven by the fact that all but one of the game that Big East teams played were really even close. (Sorry UK fans, but without a superman effort by ONE player, (Joe Crawford), that game against Marquette was not even close.)

The Big East IS the BEAST of college basketball, and no one can deny that now.