Big East is no longer so mighty

Conference will be hard-pressed to match success of last season

NEW YORK -- The buzzwords were "balance" and "parity" as the Big East men's basketball coaches gathered Wednesday for the league's annual media day. But in terms of the spotlight, there was nothing balanced about it.

No coach drew attention quite like Rick Pitino, whose chair was surrounded by reporters four- and five-deep waiting to ask the Louisville coach about the tumultuous months since the Cardinals won the 2008-09 Big East title.

Pitino had previously addressed reports of his extramarital affair and the extortion attempt that reportedly followed. But on a day devoted to forecasting the season for the Big East's 16 teams, the question of how the fallout from his indiscretions will affect the Cardinals was relevant once again.

"There will be no more distraction," Pitino said flatly. "I owe it to my team."

As for recruiting, he said the matter hadn't come up in a single phone call.

"The players and the recruits are not" interested, Pitino added. "All they're interested in is their future, making their lives better for their families someday, becoming the best player they could possibly be, winning games."

Unlike the emotional news conference he called in Louisville to discuss the issue earlier this fall, Pitino didn't chide the media Wednesday. He went out of his way, in fact, to empathize and identify.

"I really just want to focus on basketball," said Pitino, 57, who looked a bit wearier than this time a year ago but was immaculately turned out in a dark suit set, white shirt, striped tie and pocket scarf.

"The best thing for me is put it behind me. . . . I don't want to tell you about my difficulties because you guys look in the mirror, and ladies look in the mirror, and you have difficult times in your life, so I'm no different than you."

Louisville serves as a prime example of a Big East team likely to suffer a reversal of fortune this season. The Cardinals lost two starters to the NBA draft's first round. This week, two current players, captain Jerry Smith and Terrence Jennings, were placed on one-year probation as part of a plea agreement stemming from their Oct. 11 arrest following an altercation at an Indiana restaurant.

Almost to a man, Big East coaches echoed the theme of balance and parity. It was a sharp contrast from last season, when the Big East was anointed the mightiest conference in college basketball.

Except for the failure to win the national title, the Big East went a long way toward backing up the hype, becoming the first conference to have three No. 1 seeds in the NCAA tournament (Louisville, Connecticut and Pittsburgh) and sending two squads to the Final Four (Villanova and Connecticut).

"This year, you don't start with as much hype," Villanova Coach Jay Wright said. "You've got a lot of parity. But does that mean one team comes through and wins the national championship? I do think [that] the team that wins this conference is going to have a lot of losses this year."

Villanova was picked to win the regular season title in preseason voting by the coaches, followed by West Virginia and Connecticut.

Louisville was picked fourth and Georgetown fifth despite a late-season slump that kept the Hoyas out of last season's NCAA tournament.

Notre Dame's Luke Harangody was named preseason player of the year for a second consecutive year. Georgetown sophomore Greg Monroe was named to the all-Big East first team, the only non-senior on the six-man roster, which was rounded out by Harangody, Cincinnati's Deonta Vaughn, Marquette's Lazar Hayward, Villanova's Scottie Reynolds and West Virginia's Da'Sean Butler.