As part of SI.com's preview of the 2018–19 college basketball season, we're breaking down each of the seven major conferences, plus the best of the rest. Our predicted order of finish for each league is drawn from our master 1–353 rankings, the full list of which will be revealed later this month. We did the AAC and the ACC; Next up for our conference previews is the Big East, complete with our analyst's breakdowns of each team and anonymous scouting takes from coaches or assistants around the league.
The Big East has boasted the national champion in two of the past three seasons (Villanova in 2016 and 2018) and had two No.