The Big East is buoyed by -- and continues to profit off -- its proud, almost-40-year history. The league now is not the league it was in 1984, 1995, 2002 or 2011. But the more I see what the Big East is growing into, the more I think people have to let go of, once and for all, what the conference used to be.
And for all the respect the conference has slowly received during the past three years, it's still not enough. Be it on television or with the written word, today's Big East is still often discussed as if it's in a stage of transition, as if this honeymoon period will fizzle.
But this is no longer a "new era" for the Big East. The league has little left to prove, in fact.
Just because Syracuse, UConn, Louisville, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, West Virginia and others are no longer paying rent does not mean the league is vastly inferior to its former form. Here are the facts: The Big East has rated as a top-three conference -- sitting at the table with the ACC and the Big 12 -- in each of the past three seasons. This season has brought more of the same. KenPom.com and the Sagarin ratings both have the Big East as the third-best league in college basketball. There could be a case come March that the Big East is No. 2, behind the Big 12.
It hasn't always been like this -- and I'm talking about what the conference used to be. In 2001-02, the Big East ranked sixth at KenPom. The next two seasons it was fourth, and so it was again in 2007-08. The Big East was often elite but even still it had its down cycles. Since conference realignment put the league at a 10-team group in 2013, it has responded by averaging 5.5 NCAA Tournament bids and at least one No. 1 or No. 2 seed every season. There has been no down cycle yet and there probably isn't going to be one for another few years -- minimally.
Check the coaching roster, the recruiting rankings and the bracketology forecasts. Eight of the league's 10 teams are realistically in position to play themselves into the NCAA Tournament. At worst, six teams will have their name called by Greg Gumbel on Selection Sunday. The Big East is a beast without rest.
Why do I bring this all up? Because No. 1 Villanova knocked the snot out of 10th-ranked Xavier on Wednesday night, 89-65. Xavier is a quality team this season, again. It's a team capable of getting back to the Elite Eight, as it did in 2017.
But Villanova, with the benefit of the home floor, looked like it was playing a JV team. For me, the game signaled more than just another casually ridiculous home blowout for Jay Wright's program. When we discuss Villanova's dominance, it's vital to remember that the Wildcats aren't building a dynastic regime in a conference struggling to get three bids on an annual basis. The Big East has built itself to a level above the SEC, Pac-12 and American Athletic Conference during the past half-decade.
For Villanova to be doing this is exceptional, not a knock on the Big East. It's a demonstration of why Wright will one day probably wind up in the Hall of Fame. Since 2013-14, Villanova is 144-18, with a 66-10 mark in the Big East. It has won a national championship. It has produced first-round NBA Draft picks, and will lay claim to multiple first-team All-America selections by the time Jalen Brunson earns that honor (joining Josh Hart from last season) at season's end.
We are in the midst of the most impressive, consistent, domineering, throne-holding run in Big East history. No team had ever won four consecutive Big East regular-season titles -- until Villanova from 2014-17. Maybe it's because Kansas and Bill Self ruined it for everyone else by finishing atop the Big 12 standings 13 years running. Winning a power conference five years straight doesn't earn you the plaudits it used to, I guess.
Villanova now sits at 15-1 with four of its next five games on the road ... and the Wildcats will be strong favorites in all those games. The Big East has never seen one program reign over the conference like this. Wright is doing something we probably won't see again in this conference for decades. The post-realignment era has coincided with a change in coaching and recruiting philosophy for Wright that has brought him to the peak of the sport.
Barring a hard-to-envision set of stumbles, the Wildcats are going to be a No. 1 NCAA seed again. It will be the third time in the past four seasons VU has pulled that off. Every season since 2013-14 Villanova has been at least a No. 2 seed. Given that it has a national championship to its name, Villanova can make a case it has been the most consistent program in all of college basketball this decade. That's great advertising for the Big East -- and a miserable state of affairs for all the teams trying to usurp the Wildcats.
Without a true challenger -- yet still with a reliable batch of programs good enough to keep the league top-tier -- Villanova is set up to keep this colloquial dynasty humming for a few more years to come. These kinds of declarations more often materialize at or near the ends of seasons. But sometimes they can crystallize when you beat the second-best team in the league for a fifth consecutive season at home, with those victories coming by an average of 24 points. Nobody's close to Villanova , and I don't know how that's going to change.