I did this a couple times in the past and people found it useful, so I’m going to get back on the horse and do it again. Here’s the concept:

Once it’s go time for conference play around the nation, I like to take a quick look at how the 16 teams in the Big East fared in the “preseason”. I’m going to provide a very quick snapshot of each team, going from worst to best according to the officially predicted finish provided by the coaches back at Media Day in October. This will enable us to get a feel for who’s been better than expected so far, who’s crapped out a bit, and who’s right on pace. I’ll look at how each school handled opposition from other BCS conferences, how they handled the tougher mid-majors, and whether or not they had any disturbing cupcake losses. Then I’ll give a little interpretive blurb of varying length, depending on whether or not the team in question did anything interesting.  I’m hampered in my observational ability by virtue of living in China and not being able to see any of these teams play with my own eyes — so consider this a pure numbers-oriented review. (All RPI and Strength-of-Schedule info is drawn from RealTimeRPI.com)

Here’s the bottom half of the league, according to the preseason poll, going from 16 to 9. I’ll do the top 8 in the next day or two (**actually, I’ll do the bottom 7 today because the coaches voted a tie at #8, so I’ll do the top “8″ tomorrow, which is 9 teams):

Team: DePaul
Coaches predicted finish in Big East: 16th
Record as of Dec 27: 6-6
RPI and SoS going into league play, just out of curiosity: 271st, 280th
Record against BCS opponents: 0-2

• Lost to Oklahoma State on neutral court
• Lost to Stanford on neutral court

Record against tough mid-majors: 1-1

• Lost to Ball State at home
• Beat Florida Atlantic at home

Disturbing losses?: Many — Western Carolina at home, Cal State-Northridge on neutral court, Indiana State on the road
How are they away from home?: 0-4, mostly on neutral courts. A home-heavy schedule didn’t do them much good.
Verdict: I guess it’s nice that DePaul is on a 3 game winning streak heading into conference play — including their only half-way decent win of the year (Florida Atlantic) — but all signs point to a painful Big East experience for the Blue Demons this year.  The league coaches saw this coming, and there’s no reason to think their prediction of 16th place will be incorrect.  DePaul finishes up the preseason with the worst RPI in the Big East by a margin of over 100 places, and their 6-6 record came against one of the weakest slate of opponents anyone in the league faced.  Most of their losses came against singularly unimpressive teams, with the exception of OK St. Last year DePaul came out of December with a 7-5 non-conference record, and promptly dropped a 1-17 on the Big East. That’s not going to change.

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Team: Rutgers
Coaches predicted finish in Big East: 15th
Record as of Dec 27: 9-2
RPI and SoS going into league play, just out of curiosity: 99th, 300th
Record against BCS opponents: 2-0*

• Beat Miami (FL) at home
• Beat Auburn on neutral court
• TBD: vs. North Carolina on Tuesday Dec. 28

Record against tough mid-majors: 1-1

• Lost to Princeton on the road
• Beat Fairfield at home

Disturbing losses?: Normally a loss to St Joseph’s on the road is not a bad loss, but St Joe’s is way down this year so we have to chalk it up.
How are they away from home?: 2-2, but both wins were against sub-250 teams
Verdict: Fascinating stuff here, and what it all adds up to is unclear. On the surface it appears that Rutgers is better than 15th in the league, but it’s hard to know if that’s definitely true or how much better they might be. Their overall record and some of their seemingly impressive wins are not worth as much as they initially appear. The Scarlet Knights are 9-2, but they played one of the weakest schedules in the country. On the other hand, beating 9 Division 1 teams is something DePaul won’t manage all year long, so Rutgers deserves some credit. RU also beat Auburn on a neutral court, which sounds good until you realize that Auburn is 3-7 this year and one of the worst BCS teams anywhere. However, RU also beat Miami convincingly, a team that is now 10-3 and in the RPI top 20.  Lots of conflicting messages to sort through in this data. We’ll have a better sense of Rutgers early this week when they wrap up their preseason against UNC on a neutral court. I wish I could wait for the results of that game to do this write-up, but the rest of the league will have already begun Big East play by then, so Rutgers’ early season report card will have to be graded incomplete. If they knock of UNC — a team that has disappointed early but is still 8-4 and 25th in the RPI thanks to their insanely tough schedule — then we can conclude new coach Mike Rice really has worked an instant miracle in Piscataway.  If they fail against the Tar Heels, which is the more likely result, then we’ll have to reserve judgment on the Knights until we get into conference play a bit. Though RU may be better than we thought they would be, it’s still hard to envision them finishing any higher than maybe 13th, if only because so few teams above them are likely to fall back.

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Team: Providence
Coaches predicted finish in Big East: 14th
Record as of Dec 27: 11-2
RPI and SoS going into league play, just out of curiosity: 54th, 175th
Record against BCS opponents: 1-1

• Lost to Boston College on the road
• Beat Alabama at home

Record against tough mid-majors: 1-0

• Beat Rhode Island at home

Disturbing losses?: they dropped one to a 6-6 LaSalle team on the road, which is not that shameful, but a bit of a reality check.
How are they away from home?: 1-2, no true road wins
Verdict: Providence is an example of why Rutgers ain’t gonna be moving up any time soon, despite their fancy 9-2 record.  The Friars are 11-2 against better opponents for the most part, and their #54 RPI suggests a team with a shot of ending up on the bubble come March.  On the other hand, Providence probably won’t be able to reach much higher than 13th place in the Big East themselves for the same reasons as Rutgers.  The Friars have a sweet looking resume, but its mostly because they somehow convinced almost everyone on their schedule to play them in Rhode Island.  Yes, they played fewer complete cupcakes than Rutgers, but they were equally lacking in big opponents.  However, in their two true challenges, they managed to defeat RIU and come within 2 points of a very good BC team (the Alabama win is worthless).  Providence, like Rutgers, looks slightly better than what the coaches anticipated; but only slightly.  Don’t expect any miracles.

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Team: South Florida
Coaches predicted finish in Big East: 13th
Record as of Dec 27: 6-7
RPI and SoS going into league play, just out of curiosity: 102nd, 26th
Record against BCS opponents: 2-0

• Beat Texas Tech on neutral court
• Beat Auburn at home

Record against tough mid-majors: 1-7 (!!!)

• Lost to Southern Miss at home
• Lost to Central Florida on the road
• Lost to BYU on neutral court
• Beat Virginia Commonwealth at home
• Lost to Florida Atlantic on the road
• Lost to Kent State on the road
• Lost to James Madison at home
• Lost to Cleveland State on the road

Disturbing losses?: None
How are they away from home?: 1-5
Verdict: Every year some damn fool lower-tier Big East team ends up with a schedule like South Florida’s, and every year the same thing happens. They end up ruining their confidence with too many early season losses against far too good of a schedule, and rather than “toughening” up for Big East play, they just end up feeling bad about themselves and they crap out once January rolls around. Every one of USF’s 7 losses came against a top-100 team. In fact, if you want a quick tour of mid-majors that are likely to compete for at-large bids this year, just scan USF’s schedule.  Why they did this to themselves I do not know, nor do I understand why they would want to leave the comfortable Tampa-area climate so often for all those tough road games. Providence somehow gets 10 home games but USF only wants 7? At any rate, their SOS is obviously very high, but they have little to show for it.  Only the VA Commonwealth win is impressive; the two BCS teams they beat are crap. If there is a positive to point to, it’s that almost all of USF’s losses this year have been by very close margins. So maybe for once this “toughen-up” strategy will pay off, but somehow I doubt it.

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Team: Cincinnati
Coaches predicted finish in Big East: 12th
Record as of Dec 27: 12-0
RPI and SoS going into league play, just out of curiosity: 95th, 339th
Record against BCS opponents: 1-0

• Beat Oklahoma on a neutral court

Record against tough mid-majors: 1-0

• Beat Dayton at home

Disturbing losses?: none
How are they away from home?: 3-0
Verdict: It’s quite a trick to be 12-0 in late December and yet not even be sniffing the national rankings. But Cinci has pulled the trick, and it’s not hard to figure out why. Their best win by far is a 68-34 home thrashing of a Dayton team that is now 10-3 and solidly in the RPI top 100.  Their second best win is against IPFW — a series of letters that I’m not going to bother to look up. To say the least, Cincinnati’s 12-0 record is more than a bit fraudulent.  That Oklahoma win counts for little (6-5, rpi: 174), and everything else on Cinci’s schedule requires the use of Google Maps. The good news is that many of these wins have been absolute beatings, so I suppose there is a chance that a legitimately talented team is hidden somewhere behind all the cupcake crumbs, but there’s really no way to know anything real about the Bearcats right now.

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Team: Seton Hall
Coaches predicted finish in Big East: 11th
Record as of Dec 27: 6-5
RPI and SoS going into league play, just out of curiosity: 144th, 102nd
Record against BCS opponents: 1-2

• Beat Alabama on neutral court
• Lost to Clemson on neutral court
• Lost to Arkansas on neutral court

Record against tough mid-majors: 1-3*

• Lost to then #22 Temple on the road
• Lost to Xavier on neutral court
• Beat UMass on the road
• Lost to Dayton at home
• TBD: Richmond at home on December 26th

Disturbing losses?: none
How are they away from home?: 2-4
Verdict: If you’re a team like Seton Hall — with a brand new coach in the first stages of a rebuilding project — and you find yourself 6-5 in late December, with all five losses coming against pretty good teams, often in tough road or neutral environments, then it’s a sign you may have challenged yourself and your team a little too much, a little too soon. I’m sure Kevin Willard has all sorts of visions of the amazing things he’s going to do for the Seton Hall program, but the rest of the country has given him a reality check so far this year. I know they lost all-universe gunner Jeremy Hazell after just a few games, but frankly even with Hazell the optimism surrounding Seton Hall this year was still a bit questionable. Other than a fairly decent road win over a solid-but-not-great UMass squad, the Pirates have mostly failed all the tests Willard put in front of them. They have one last chance to prove they’ve learned how to win without Hazell when they play Richmond later this afternoon, but even if they pull the trick I still anticipate major problems for them in the Big East. Yes they’ve faced some tough opponents, but overall their SoS is only 102nd, which hardly represents the kind of murderer’s row one would associate with a good team going 6-5. If the coaches had known Hazell was going to be out for maybe the whole year, they probably would have put the Hall somewhere back in the 13-15 range — which is probably where they’ll end up.

[UPDATE: they lost the Richmond game. So the Hall goes in to the Big East at 6-6.]

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Team: Connecticut
Coaches predicted finish in Big East: 10th
Record as of Dec 27: 10-0
RPI and SoS going into league play, just out of curiosity: 7th, 66th
Record against BCS opponents: 2-0

• Beat then #2 Michigan State on neutral court
• Beat then #9 Kentucky on neutral court

Record against tough mid-majors: 2-0

• Beat Vermont at home
• Beat Wichita State on neutral court

Disturbing losses?: sadly, no
How are they away from home?: 3-0
Verdict: UConn sucks.  The coaches picked them 10th and that’s exactly what’s going to happen. I see no reason to reevaluate my earlier position. In my eyes, they are 6-4 right now, like they’re supposed to be. They certainly aren’t ranked in the top 5 in the nation. That would be madness.