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Landed back in South Bend a little while ago in preparation for the Notre Dame-Georgetown tip at 7 p.m. and got off the prop plane to find out that nine -- count em, nine -- Big East teams are still ranked at what is now the midway point of the season.
The league is led, of course, by new No. 1 Pittsburgh, which vaulted to the No. 1 ranking after beating Georgetown on Saturday and North Carolina losing to Boston College on Sunday.
Pitt is No. 1 in both polls released Monday, with Duke second, North Carolina third and Wake Forest fourth.
After those three ACC schools, the Big East dominates the rest of the poll.
In the AP poll, Connecticut is fifth, Georgetown ninth, Syracuse 11th, Notre Dame 13th, Marquette and Villanova tied at 18th, Louisville tied with Baylor at 23rd and West Virginia at 25th.
Over on the coaches' side of things, which Insights often finds a more accurate barometer since the one thing college basketball coaches do, a lot, is watch teams play basketball. And unlike the college football coaches' poll, basketball is on every night so catching other teams playing is fairly easy to do.
Per the coaches, Connecticut is fifth, Syracuse ninth, Georgetown 10th, Notre Dame 13th, Marquette 15th, Villanova 17th, Louisville 21st and West Virginia 22nd.
Consider, too, Notre Dame plays six of these ranked teams -- including Georgetown tonight -- before January is over. Something tells me by the time February 1st arrives, the Irish will know exactly where they stand both in the Big East and nationally.
