Since the Great Catholic/Football Schism of 2013, in a world where once-legible power conferences have contorted and ballooned (or just died), the Big East has remained one of the best things about college basketball — because the best thing about the Big East is its culture.
The nutty fan bases, the lack of football and hyper-focus on hoops, the tight identities, the packed energy in northeastern gyms, “Roundball Rock,” Gus and Raftery on the call: More than any other conference in the sport, the Big East feels right. It makes sense. It can be enjoyed almost regardless of the quality of the basketball on the floor.
Not that there hasn’t been good basketball. The league has won four of the past 10 national titles. It platformed the best two-year run in the sport in at least two decades. But there have been minor hiccups along the way. The Big East ranked sixth in KenPom.com’s average league strength rankings in 2021. It earned just three NCAA Tournament bids, despite ranking second, in 2024. None of its five teams got out of the first weekend in 2025, either, but tournament performance is a bit too random for us to care about that. Still, the 2024 year prompted lots of conversations — both within and about the league office. Was the Big East really maximizing, in terms of resources and output, the unique cachet it has acquired?
The “resource” problem, such as it exists, might already be solved. Next season, college sports revenue sharing begins. Many coaches still don’t know exactly what this will mean for their talent budgets, but Big East teams mostly do. They will pull from the same pot of money to spend on players as their Big Ten and SEC counterparts, for example, but (save UConn) they won’t have to share most of that money with cash-devouring football operations. (The idea of Georgetown, Butler and Villanova kicking some money down to their FCS teams does sound adorable, though.) In theory, this gives Big East programs a significant advantage — both in sheer available pre-NIL cash and annual budgetary clarity — over high-major rivals who want to be good at everything.
It may not make the league a behemoth right away. It’s safe to assume the Auburns and Michigan States and Texas Techs of the world are going to make up that volume somewhere. Most coaches are still freaked out about how all of this is actually going to work.
But we can say this much: Next spring, for the first time in over a decade, a decade it has spent punching impressively above its structural weight, the football-free Big East will not be at some obvious financial disadvantage to the biggest spenders in the sport. Rosters are already good. They should get a lot better. The culture won’t go anywhere; if anything, it will get stronger.
We can’t wait to see what that league looks like.
In the meantime, though, there is the small matter of the final pre-rev-share season in the modern Big East’s history. It should resemble the league as we’ve generally come to know it the past few seasons, particularly at the top — with a few transitional wrinkles.
Note: This is the first in a series of power league and mid-major previews we’ll be running in the next few weeks. We skipped this in Buzzer’s first season, but last year found the preview process remains a) fun, b) popular and c) the best way for the author to make sure he knows what guys are on which rosters come November. Teams are listed vaguely, in broad tiers, some of which are kind of silly.
Also: If you’d like to hear me talk at length about the Big East (and so much more) with the legendary John Fanta, you should fire up our episode of the Basket Under Review Podcast at all your usual pod places. It was a good one.
OK! Without further ado, a look at the 2025-26 Big East men’s basketball conference, starting with …
The (Kind of) Hot Take
Connecticut Huskies
Yes, you read that right: We’ve got Connecticut No. 1.
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