I admit, it’s hard to pay much attention to college basketball with football season hitting the conference crunch time. But more pre-season rankings have appeared. The least I can do is check out what they say. Actual analysis will come later.

The top-half of the Big East is loaded this year. Pitt, coming off it’s first Big East Championship (I still love to type that) is in the upper-echelon of teams, but with a top-heavy Big East that only has them picked to be 4th in the Big East this year. UConn, Syracuse and Notre Dame are considered better. Considering Pitt lost its head coach and 3 starters, it is understandable. Here’s a decent, though a bit inaccurate preview of the Pitt team from Sports Illustrated and Athlon Sports (One of the incoming freshmen listed, Walter Walters, was released from his scholarship at his request and signed with Cleveland State after failing to qualify academically).

Of course the big poll came out yesterday. The ESPN/USA Today coaches poll. Pitt is listed at No. 22. The 4th team listed from the Big East (UConn #1, Syracuse #7 and ND tied at #19). Of minor note, 3 teams from Conference USA that are expected to join the Big East Mega Mess are also ranked (Louisville #16, Cinci tied at #19 and Marquette #23).

I only point this out because of my distaste for the mega conference plan. If the Big East just split apart as it should, the football/basketball conference would still be better than the remaining basketball only schools. It just becomes more apparent how much the b-ball only schools are not providing much (other than Madison Square Garden, via St. Johns, for the Big East Tournament). But I digress.