In the month of October, The Floor Slap will be launching our College Basketball Preview. We will be previewing all 14 Big Ten Teams, making predictions, covering the biggest storylines across the country and more! Follow @thefloorslap to stay up to date on all our Basketball coverage before the season tips off on November 5th.
by Jordan Beckley
The Big East is consistently one of the best conferences in the country and it will be once again in 2023-24.
Last year, the Big East had a surprise champion in Marquette and the eventual National Champion in UConn finished fourth. The conference schedule is brutal as the Huskies at one point lost 6 of 8 straight conference games. The high level of competition makes the day-to-day of watching every game so compelling. You would be hard-pressed last year to find a stretch of 3 days where there wasn’t a matchup between Xavier, Marquette, UConn, Creighton and Providence if not multiple.
Beyond just the ability to turn on a great game on any given night, the conference’s cup spills over with juicy storylines. This year is no different.
We have Ed Cooley coaching Providence’s rival, a blossoming repeat title narrative in Connecticut, Slick Rick Pitino’s quest to play every game in Madison Square Garden, teams looking for revenge and more.
So let’s break down the best ones.
Will Uconn Repeat?
It has been since 2006-07 Florida since a repeat National Champ. All it took the Gators was to return all 5 starters including their three top 10 picks in Corey Brewer, Joakim Noah and Al Horford.
Most National champs don’t return that kind of firepower. It’s hard to repeat as a National Champ in College because you basically never return the same guys.
Baylor two years ago lost all of their great guard trio in Jerome Butler, MaCio Teague and Davion Mitchell.
Kansas last year lost Ochai Agbaji, David McCormick and Christian Braun. Now, UConn will lose Andre Jackson, Adama Sanogo and Jordan Hawkins.
Despite losing its most important three players, the repeat narrative for the Huskies is still alive mainly due to what the absence of those guys brings in. Donovan Clingan was behind Sanogo all of last year and NBA draft guys think he could’ve been drafted without starting like Zach Collins was from Gonzaga. This year Clingan will get bumped up to 30 mpg and could be a NPOY guy and catapult himself into the top 5 of draft boards.
Stephon Castle is a player that everyone loves in a class that nobody likes. Solomon Ball is another talented freshman and Coach Hurley grabbed an impact guy in Rutgers transfer Cam Spencer on the wing. Tristen Newton is back to run the point. Alex Karaban is ready to make a leap.
You can see the outline of a really good team. It almost makes sense why Draftkings has them with the 6th highest championship odds at 16-1.
The problem for UConn is that the year after the big one has been consistently bad.
Here is a list of how UConn’s season went the year after winning the National Title:
- 1999-00 // 25-10 // 5 seed Second round exit
- 2004-05 / /23-8 // 2 seed Second round exit
- 2011-12 // 20-14 // 9 seed Second round exit
- 2014-15 // 20-15 // Missed the Tournament
A mediocre season and a 2nd round exit is much more likely than them repeating.
But, UConn fans are ravenous and want more National titles. One isn’t enough! We will have to wait and see how it plays out for the Huskies.
New Coaches with Big Entrances
No other conference in the country has coaches with storylines as exciting as the Big East coaches making their debuts at new schools.
We have three new coaches each with must-watch storylines in Ed Cooley, Kim English and Rick Pitino.
I wrote an entire column about Ed Cooley’s decision to leave Providence to coach rival Georgetown. The sparknotes is that Georgetown offers Cooley a unique opportunity as a black head coach to carry on Coach John Thompson’s legacy. The Hoyas will also give Cooley the ability to jump up a tier in recruiting and compete at a more national level. Apparently one of his first big portal recruits in Jayden Epps dropped 46 points in a win over Wake Forest in their secret scrimmage.
Now, Ed Cooley’s decision certainly (and justifiably) ruffled some feathers in Rhode Island. His return to the Dunkin’ Donuts Center to coach against Providence on January 27th will be appointment viewing no matter how good or bad each team is. The game will likely be one of the most hostile home crowds in recent memory and will be a heated couple hours.
Cooley’s replacement is Kim English coming over from his first Head Coaching gig at George Mason. You may remember him from his playing days on those Frank Haith Missouri teams in the early 2010s. Or you might remember him from earlier in the summer when he played 1 on 1 to keep Jayden Pierre from leaving in the transfer portal.
English is a hot name in the coaching world with stops at Tulsa under his former coach Frank Haith, Colorado under Tad Boyle, and in Knoxville with Rick Barnes. Whether or not Providence hired him too early could be up for debate, but with a roster that returns two of the conferences in Bryce Hopkins and Devin Carter, we will find out quickly what Coach English is made of.
We already know what Rick Pitino is made of. Perhaps, College Basektball fans know too much about Coach Pitino. Pretty soon everyone might as the countries largest market will now be the home of one of the sport’s largest coaches.
Coach Pitino is already bringing some flash in his return to Power Conference basketball. He is determined to play as many St. Johns games inside Madison Square Garden as possible. He is burning up recruiting grabbing 8 players from the portal like Kansas big Zuby Ejiofor and stud Penn player Jordan Dingle and Slick Rick even stole 4-Star Simeon Wilcher from UNC in his shortened 2023 recruiting cycle.
Pitino has his believers as many pundits have the Johnnies as a borderline preseason top 25 team. He also has his doubters as most of the analytics driven rankings believe they will miss the tournament. Regardless, it is great to have him back and it will be great to watch him coach against Cooley, English, Dan Hurley and the rest of this brutally stacked conference.
How does Creighton look after big departures coming off their Elite Eight run?
The Creighton Blue Jays made just their second Elite Eight appearance ever last year. An untimely foul from two year starter Ryan Nembhard in the final minute meant that they wouldn’t earn their first ever Final Four appearance. But they come back ready to run it back and on a mission this year right?
Well, an untimely exit from Nembhard changed the story in Omaha. Fellow starter and rising junior Arthur Kalimantan joined Nembhard in the portal. Now, Nembhard plays for Mark Few and Gonzaga like his brother did and Kaluma is on Kansas State.
But Coach McDermott didn’t just sit on his hands this off-season. McDermott made his own moves by bringing in Steven Ashworth from Utah State to replace Nembhard and 4-star redshirt freshman Isaac Traudt from Virginia to replace Kaluma.
Oh and the rest of the core is ready to run it back. Trey Alexander is still one of the best wings in the country, Two-time Big East DPOY Ryan Kalkbrenner is back to dominate the paint, and Baylor Scheierman is back to drain from deep distance and grab every rebound in front of him.
No, this isn’t the same Creighton team, but could that be a good thing?
Creighton will enter the year with fresh blood, but also enough players seeking payback for the near miss of the previous season.
The Blue Jays are 3-1 odds to win the Big East and 8-1 to make the Final Four according to Draftkings.
Coach McDermott has brought Creighton basketball to its peak. This year might answer the question of how high that peak can be.
Marquette returns the lot. Can they repeat as Big East Champs and more importantly make the Final Four?
Many of the Big East storylines talk about what teams are bringing back. This is pretty natural for preseason stories to focus on instead of returning players haven’t had the chance yet to warrant hype.
Will UConn repeat? Can Creighton make the Final Four? Did they bring back enough to do so? All typical. But what about the reigning Big East regular season and tournament champ?
Last year’s Golden Eagles flew completely under the radar because of what they didn’t bring back. Instead the opening left from the players not coming back were filled by Tyler Kolek, Olivier Maxence-Prosper and Oso Ighodaro.
Marquette won everything last year in arguably the best conference in Basketball before being upset by Michigan State in the 2nd round of March Madness.
Not only did they win everything last year, the Golden Eagles now bring back more returning production than anyone else in the conference! Coach Shaka Smart lost Olivier Maxence-Prosper, but kept basically everyone else. That includes reigning Big East player of the year and a candidate for NPOY this season in Tyler Kolek.
Marquette knows what they’re capable of and better yet has proven it with the Big East titles last season. The difference is the early March exit will leave the Golden Eagles hungry and motivated to correct it this season.
Go ahead, make your jokes about Shaka Smart and March. Maybe you’re right. But you might be missing the most obvious Final Four/Title candidate in the conference because of those jokes. The Golden Eagles are 6-1 to make the Final Four and 18-1 to win everything. UConn at 5-1 is the only team in the conference with better Final Four odds.
Could there be another Marquette out there this season who wins the conference with guys that we don’t know their names yet but can’t forget by the end of the year?
No matter what Marquette bringing back what they have is impossible to ignore. Golden Eagle fans should absolutely be geared up for Final Four or more expectations and seasons with that high of an outlook rarely disappoint in College Basketball right?
Villanova is reloaded and ready for year 2 under Kyle Neptune
Year 1 didn’t go to plan for Kyle Neptune.
Injuries derailed multiple players’ seasons and consequently the pieces never quite fit together like a bad puzzle.
While restless fans rumbled on Twitter this offseason, Neptune wasn’t waiting around. The chosen man of Jay Wright was active this off-season doing something Wright didn’t like to do; mining the transfer portal.
The Wildcats gained new players in Tyler Burton, who scored 1600+ points in four years at Richmond, TJ Bamba, who scored 16 a game in the PAC-12 last year, Hakim Hart, a three year starter at Maryland, and finally Lance Ware from Kentucky.
Bring in a healthy Justin Moore, another year of development for guys like Mark Armstrong and Jordan Longino and you can see the path for Villanova.
So we know there’s talent, but last years team had talent too.
How much will the Wildcats actually win? Part of what comes with the “blue blood” status that Wright achieved by winning two titles in three years is the shrinking of fans patience and tolerance. Would 14 conference wins and a Top-4 finish be a success or a failure?
Eyes will be on Kyle Neptune all year. Let’s see what he can do with the spotlight on him.
I could go on and on about the Big East, but we will end with this. Big East is almost certainly going to have the best Conference title race.
According to Draftkings, this is the only conference with three teams to have +300 odds or better in Marquette, UConn and Creighton. Don’t count out Sean Miller and Xavier either! Or Slick Rick! Or Bryce Hopkins, Devin Carter and Providence who have been there before!
I can’t wait for the Big East Basketball to be back.