Dick Weiss on NCAA Tournament

NEW YORK— The Garden has been hopping all week.

The Big East is back at the Mecca for its annual conference tournament and, despite the fact the ACC was taking place across the river at the Barclays Center, attendance for this 10 team, basketball only conference has been strong with fans filling up the seats to watch two Top 10 teams– Villanova and Xavier—and four other likely NCAA participants, Creighton, Butler, Seton Hall and Providence.

When the old Big East broke up in 2013 after football schools Louisville, Notre Dame, Syracuse and Pitt all defecting to the Atlantic Coast Conference and West Virginia leaving for more lucrative Power 5 conference, it was hard to predict the future.

But the league has been able to reinvent itself.

“I loved the old Big East,’’ said Villanova coach Jay Wright, who was raised on 1980’s Big East basketball.  “I remember those Georgetown-St. John’s games when they were 1, 2 in the country. But once we incorporated football, a lot of the private Catholic schools felt all the decisions being made at the league meetings were football related.

“We don’t have to worry about that anymore. All the schools in the room have the same philosophies because we’re all basketball schools and this is a special time of year for our fans. It’s our bowl week.’’

The new Big East is making its own memories.

Villanova has been in the forefront of this surprising resurgence during the league’s first five years. The Wildcats won four regular season championships, an NCAA tournament title in 2016 and were ranked No. 1 at the end of last year. The Cats are ranked 2 in this week’s AP poll, a spot ahead of Xavier. Xavier, which dethroned Villanova as the Big East regular season champion, is ranked 2 in the USA Today Coaches poll, just ahead of Villanova.

Both teams appear to be peaking at the right time and headed toward a third meeting in the league’s championship game Saturday night and there is a good chance both will be No. 1 seeds in the upcoming NCAA tournament.

“I’m proud of where the league is now,’’ Wright said. “Both teams have a great chance to win the national championship.’’

Villanova (28-4), which defeated Xavier twice in the regular season, flexed its muscles in Thursday’s 94-70 quarterfinal victory over Marquette, shooting 56.9 percent and making 13 of its final 19 threes to advance to a semi-final matchup against Butler. Redshirt junior Forward Mikal Bridges, who announced himself to the college basketball world in December when he scored 28 points during a convincing win over Gonzaga in the Jimmy V. Classic in this arena, played perhaps his best all around game against the Eagles, scoring 25 points, making four threes, grabbing 8 rebounds and contributing 4 assists in 33 minutes as the Cats blew the game open with a 53 point second half.

Junior point guard Jalen Brunson, the Big East Player of the Year and a finalist for the Wooden award, finished with 21 points on 8 of 13 shooting.  Four Villanova starters—Bridges, Brunson, guard Phil Booth and center Omari Spellman—had at least three 3-pointers.

“This is the best offensive team I’ve had since I’ve been at Villanova,’’ Wright said.

When the Cats—who have six players capable to making threes– shoot it like they did against Marquette and can spread the floor for Brunson to make plays, they are almost impossible to stop.  “But we’re not going to shoot 50 percent from the three all the time,’’ Wright said. “We need to work on our defense and rebounding.’’

Xavier (28-4), which got 27 points from All Big East guard Trevon Bluiett, looked like it wanted to make a statement of its own earlier in the day when it blew away St. John’s 88-60, on its own home court in a quarterfinal game to advance to a semi-final matchup against Providence. The post-game had some ugly overtones after the Musketeers never let up in the final minutes, launching three-point shots and dunking. After Sean O’Mara threw down a two-handed jam in the final second, teammate Paul Scruggs cupped a hand to his right ear as the school band played the team off the floor.

Their act did not play well with St. John’s players. St. John’s Ahmed Bashir popped off at Tyrique Jones in the handshake line and it quickly disintegrated into shoving and shouting. The fracas was broken up by players and coaches. Both Xavier coach Chris Mack, whose team was also involved in a handshake scuffle against crosstown rival Cincinnati earlier this year; and St. John’s coach Chris Mullin, tried play the incident down and senior associate commissioner Stu Jackson said, after reviewing the film, he didn’t anticipate any disciplinary action.

“I didn’t see anything,’’ Mullin claimed.

“It was just a couple guys who didn’t want to shake hands,’’ Mack said.

It felt like old times at the Big East.