Photo by Amelia Halverson/Philadelphia Inquirer

Shaka Smart finished with a losing record for the second time in his 17 years as a head coach.

It’s March 2011. The Big East just finished with seven of the top twenty-five teams in the country and are preparing to go to battle for a conference championship at Madison Square Garden. 11 of its 16 teams are projected to make the NCAA tournament which would be an NCAA record. The City of New York is anticipating a competitive Big East Tournament at the World’s Most Famous Arena. 

The tournament was historic.

The ninth seeded UConn Huskies won five games in five days to win the conference in dramatic fashion, winning the last three games by a combined 11 points, becoming the lowest seed to win the conference tournament. 

UConn’s miracle run didn’t stop there. They won their next six contests in the NCAA tournament to capture the national championship with a 53-41 win over the Butler Bulldogs, finishing their historic season with a storybook ending. 

2011 was the highest point the conference ever reached. 

The conference realignment of 2013 saw powerhouse teams like Syracuse, UConn and Louisville leave to pursue a more competitive conference for their football programs, forcing the Big East to restart. 

Despite the setback, the Big East still regularly sent over half of the now 11 teams in the conference to the NCAA tournament, even having the national champion crowned in 2016 and 2018 when Villanova took home the games’ highest honor. 

To add to the success, once UConn returned to the Big East in 2020-21, they added two more national championships of their own in 2023 and 2024, giving the Big East four national championships since 2014, the most out of any conference in the nation. 

So, what’s the issue? 

The conference became unbalanced and top heavy. 

Two of the last three years, the Big East has only sent three of its 11 teams to the tournament. On the bright side, five of those six teams have made the Sweet 16, but it’s been a struggle for teams like DePaul and Georgetown to reach the NCAA’s biggest stage.  

The two programs have reached the tournament once combined in the last decade when Georgetown reached in 2020-21, where they ultimately fell in the first round.  

But 2025-26 saw the Big East fall into mediocrity.  

Despite UConn reaching the national championship, only four teams finished with a winning record. Programs like Marquette and Xavier, both of which were tournament teams in the previous season, finished below the .500 mark, marking the worst winning percentage in over 40 years for both programs. 

In an era where the transfer portal has become such a valuable asset for teams to retool in the offseason, the Big East only had two of the twenty-five teams in the nation when it came to transfer portal additions in both 2024 and 2025.  

But 2026 was a different story. 

Six of the eleven teams finished with a top 25 spot in transfer portal additions, including nine teams in the top 50. 

After a down season, Xavier brought in seven transfers, including five four-star additions. Players like Tru Washington (Miami), Michael Nwoko (LSU), and Chance Westry (UAB) all averaged more than ten points per game last season. 

Providence hired the coach of the year from the AAC, Bryan Hodgson. He brought in eight transfers of his own with players like Devin Vanterpool (FAU) and Malik Mack (Georgetown), both poised to be scoring threats after an impressive 2025 season. Not to mention they also brought in the number ten available transfer in Miles Byrd (San Diego State).

St John’s brought in the number four available transfer in Tounde Yessoufou (Baylor) who averaged nearly 18.0 points per game for the Bears last season.  

Georgetown and Depaul both finished with top 50 classes, helping them bolster their roster with hopes of returning to the tournament. While Seton Hall looks to build off a successful 2025 by acquiring eight transfers to give Shaheen Holloway’s roster more depth. 

After a mediocre beginning to the 2020’s, has the Big East done enough in 2026 to return to its former glory of the 2010’s?

This article was written by Lukas Schulze. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @LukasschulzeMU.