The Providence Crier Big East Preview: 2025-2026

With Big East Media Day here (thankfully for the Big East Coaches, we won’t be present at MSG for Mike to hit Pitino, Hurley, and crew with the real hard hitting questions), it is time for us to reveal our predictions for the Big East Conference.

In seeing the Preseason Accolades released this morning, you understand what Providence and the rest of the Big East is up against with super teams Connecticut and St. John’s at the top. They are objectively loaded, but built entirely differently. It’s quite fascinating.

Connecticut has taken the approach of roster retention, building through elite high school recruiting, and then augmenting the roster with a key transfer here or there, while St. John’s has a roster almost exclusively built through the transfer portal. It seems as if the rest of the schools outside of those two are playing for third place in the regular season, exemplified by the voting by the Coaches and players from those two squads littered throughout the All-Conference teams, but that is why you play the games. College basketball season is officially here, and it’s time to roll the ball out there and start playing.

Below, Mike and I provide our individual choices for 1. Big East Standings 2. Player of the Year 3. All-Conference Teams 4. Rookie of the Year 5. Coach of the Year 6. Defensive Player of the Year

Let us know what you think. For fun, I’ve linked our preseason picks last year. A few hits and definitely a few misses.

The Providence Crier Big East Preview

BOC Big East Standings

1. Connecticut
2. St. John’s
3. Creighton
4. Providence
5. Marquette
6. Georgetown
7. DePaul
8. Villanova
9. Xavier
10. Butler
11. Seton Hall

BOC Player of the Year

1. Zuby Ejifor

BOC Coach of the Year

1. Kim English – If they make the tournament after going 12-20 last year, he’ll get it running away. Other choices would be Hurley or Pitino if they are a 1 seed contender in NCAA’s and an absolute behemoth like everybody is expecting. Sleeper pick = Chris Holtmann

BOC Freshman of the Year

One of Acaden Lewis or Matthew Hodge, with the lean towards Lewis. I think this will be a building block year for Willard, and I’m not particularly high on Villanova as seen above, but I do think these guys will put up stats as freshman out of necessity.

First Team All-Big East

1. Zuby Ejifor
2. Tarris Reed
3. Solo Ball
4. Jason Edwards
5. Bryce Hopkins

Note: I wanted to include Owen Freeman here, as Mac’s offenses are tailor made for the 5 men, but his injury scares me here. Josh Dix another one to consider for Creighton.

BOC Defensive Player of the Year

Oswin Erhunmwunse – Providence

The Crier Big East Standings

1. Connecticut
2. St. John’s
3. Creighton
4. Providence
5. Marquette
6. Villanova
7. Georgetown
8. DePaul
9. Butler
10. The Hall
11. Xavier

Player of the Year

Alex Karaban – Connecticut

Coach of the Year

Dan Hurley, Connecticut (noticing a theme here, Crier)

Freshman of the Year

Acaden Lewis

First Team All-Big East

1. Zuby Ejifor
2. Owen Freeman
3. Jason Edwards
4. Alex Karaban
5. Solomon Ball