St. John’s has spent the last two seasons sitting atop the Big East, and the Red Storm are built to chase that level again. But the road to a third straight regular-season title and a third straight Big East Tournament crown looks a lot less forgiving this time around.
The conference has real depth heading into 2026-27, and the usual headline threat is still there. UConn, under Dan Hurley, is being picked by many analysts as the best team in the league.
St. John’s and the Huskies are the only Big East teams in the AP Preseason Top 25, but that doesn’t come close to telling the full story.
Rick Pitino made that point plainly during a Zoom interview with St. John’s Red Storm On SI, rattling off the teams he expects to be better.
“Xavier has improved dramatically. Georgetown, Providence have improved dramatically.
Creighton will be much better, and they just beat Iowa State at Iowa State in the scrimmage. They'll be much better than the expectations.
We all know Marquette is going to have a lot of players returning. We all see that Connecticut, UConn, is one of the premier teams in the nation,” Pitino said to St.
John’s Red Storm On SI.
The rankings back up the sense that this league is deeper than it has been in a while. KenPom has six Big East teams in its top 40 to open the season: UConn at No.
11, St. John’s at No.
23, Creighton at No. 30, Villanova at No.
32, Marquette at No. 34 and Providence at No. 39.
And the conference doesn’t have many easy outs anywhere else, either. Every Big East team is inside KenPom’s top 90.
DePaul checks in at No. 56, just ahead of Xavier at No. 58.
Seton Hall is No. 64, Georgetown sits at No. 75 and Butler comes in at No.
That kind of spread leaves little room for soft spots in league play, especially for a St. John’s team that has gone 36-4 combined over the last two seasons in Big East games.
Last year, the Red Storm’s only ranked conference opponent was UConn. This season could look more like 2024-25, when they faced three ranked teams five times overall, including in the Big East Tournament.
In Other News...
UConns Depth Just Sent A Strong Message Before The Real Games
The final tune-up before the real thing looked a lot like what has made UConn such a difficult team to pin down in recent years: size, depth and enough scoring options to keep rolling even when the rotation opens up. The No. 4 Huskies closed their exhibition slate with a 76-53 win over Purdue at PeoplesBank Arena, moving through the preseason unbeaten and getting a strong all-around showing from a bench that kept the pressure on throughout.
Colben Landrew was the loudest of those second-unit sparks, finishing with 15 points in just 18 minutes, while Jayden Ross, Oskar Giltay and Silas Demary Jr. also reached double figures. Just as encouraging for Dan Hurleys group was the defensive edge, as UConn held Purdue to 32.8 percent shooting overall and barely gave the Boilermakers anything from outside, a reminder that the Huskies may already be close to their regular-season form. [Read more 🡒]
UConn Showed Promise Against Purdue But Bigger Answers Come Next
UConn closed the preseason with a 3-0 record and a convincing 76-53 win over Purdue, a result that offered a real glimpse of the teams depth and versatility heading into the regular season. The Huskies got production from across the roster, including transfers Najai Hines and Oskar Giltay working inside, while freshman Colben Landrew led the scoring in the finale and helped reinforce the feeling that this group has more than one way to beat teams.
Braylon Mullins also returned from injury and logged his first extended run of the preseason, another encouraging sign as UConn turns to games that will say much more about where it stands. Gardner-Webb is next, but the real measuring stick comes soon after, when the Huskies start seeing a string of Power Four opponents early in the schedule and the questions about their frontcourt rotation and overall ceiling get a lot harder to avoid. [Read more 🡒]
UConns Defense Is Giving Huskies Fans A Real Reason To Believe
Dan Hurley had reason to sound upbeat as UConn moved through the preseason, with the Huskies opening 3-0 and looking far sharper on the defensive end than a team still sorting out its regular-season identity. The early signs were encouraging across the board, but the most striking part was how little room opponents found from outside, a strong indicator for a program that has built its recent success on toughness and versatility.
UConn now turns to Gardner-Webb to start the regular season, and the real test will come quickly with a demanding non-conference schedule waiting after that. For a team trying to establish itself early, the defense has given Huskies fans something tangible to latch onto, even if the deeper questions about how far that edge can carry them will have to wait for the games that matter most. [Read more 🡒]