ESPN's Joe Lunardi has posted his weekly projection of the NCAA Tournament field of 68. You can view the entire bracket as projected by Lunardi here. As has been the case for most of the regular season, Lunardi projects nine Big East teams will make the NCAA Tournament. That number would be down from last year's record 11 teams, but would still be over half of the conference once again in the field in a year where it is increasingly doubtful that Pittsburgh, a preseason top 10 team, will not make it. Here's the breakdown of Big East teams in the bracket.
- Syracuse remains one of the four top seeds along with Kentucky, Missouri, and Kansas. Kentucky is now securely in the driver's seat for the #1 overall seed, but Syracuse is likely settled as the #1 seed in the East and would play its opening games in Pittsburgh.
- Marquette and Georgetown, the only other teams in the Big East that have consistently stayed near the top of the conference standings are both projected as three seeds.
- Louisville is a four seed in the Midwest region with Georgetown. Lunardi's bracket sets up an intriguing possible matchup of Rick Pitino vs. Tubby Smith as he has Minnesota a 12 seed in one of the play in games.
- In the bottom half of the bracket, Lunardi has Connecticut in as a nine seed despite the Huskies' recent slide. He has equally struggling West Virginia a ten seed in the East region.
- Barely in but holding on, Lunardi projects Cincinnati and Seton Hall as 12 seeds in the West and East regions respectively. Seton Hall did itself a favor by beating Pittsburgh yesterday.
- Unlike last year, it doesn't look like any Big East teams will potentially play one another in the second round of the Tournament in Lunardi's projection.