If you say "Big East basketball this year in March Madness" backwards it actually will say "Big 10 football this year in bowl games." The Sweet 16 is later this week and of the 11 teams who came out of the Big East only two remain. Even worse for the conference and their image is the fact of the 8 big upsets, 6 involved teams from the Big East. We can even take it a step further and point out that not one Big East team who played someone from another conference in round #3 managed to pull off a victory. Both Connecticut and Marquette beat teams from the conference to keep hope alive, while everyone else from the Big East is back at campus watching the rest of March Madness on the television.

With Connecticut and Marquette sitting at 10-1 and 80-1 to win the NCAA Championship according to offshore sportsbook BetUS, the odds are stacked against the Big East to salvage a reputation that allowed them to put 11 teams in the "Big Dance". You have to remember, despite the record breaking five wins in five days by UConn, the Huskies were the 9th place team and Marquette was the 11th place team. Big East Commissioner John Marinatto sums it up best, "The results obviously aren’t what we were hoping for."

So with all of that being said, what the heck happened to what many experts deemed the "best conference in college basketball this season"? Fatigue? Explain that to UConn who should be the most fatigued of them all but is still alive heading into the Sweet 16. All hype? If so, how do you explain 11 Big East teams with winning records, a combined 90% win rate and all ranked in the top 50 RPI? Cincinnati, Syracuse and Connecticut were all undefeated outside of the Big East schedule. Poor seeding? Almost every Big East loss was considered an upset, being topped off with Louisville losing to Morehead State as 8.5 point favorites. Almost any reason for the collapse has a counter that just leaves me shaking my head in shock.

In the end, the Madness of March did the Big East in. There is no other explanation on why the Big East was a total train wreck in the tournament. They dominated any team not from the Big East in the regular season but across the board they were beaten by bubble teams or bottom rung teams of other conferences.  If anyone has a better explanation I would love to hear about it, but the fact remains the memory of an amazing season by the conference is already forgotten and replaced with the embarrassment of their showing in the 2011 NCAA Tournament. There is always next year; right?