St. John's coach Rick Pitino believes Big East deserves more respect than the selection committee gave it last season

The sting of Selection Sunday last March still lingers in the Big East. A scant three teams – Connecticut, Marquette and Creighton – were selected to the field of 68 by the NCAA Tournament Committee. Three schools – St. John’s, Seton Hall and Providence – were arguably snubbed.

There was plenty of outrage among conference coaches, especially as UConn won its second straight national title and Marquette and Creighton reached the Sweet 16. They – including St. John’s coach Rick Pitino – don’t see this happening again.

“The committee did a very poor job last year,” Pitino said Wednesday at Big East Media Day at Madison Square Garden. “I just tried to educate myself and called a few of them up. They all had different metrics for deciding who should make it and you can't do that.”

Additionally, he pointed out how the weakness of DePaul and Georgetown – both going through transitions – hurt the Big East teams on the margins.

“We got dragged down by the bottom of our [conference]; the bottom was Quad 3 and Quad 4 and you can’t have that in a good league,” Pitino said. “It's all going to change this year, not a doubt my mind, because Georgetown is much better, DePaul is much better, Xavier is much better.”

However, UConn coach Dan Hurley thinks there is an implicit bias against the Big East that already is evident in the AP preseason poll, where the Huskies are No. 3, Creighton No. 15, and Marquette No. 18. If given a number, St. John’s would have been 27th and Xavier 28th.

“I could already see it in the AP poll, the lack of respect that the Big East gets,” Hurley said. “We should have five teams minimum in the [poll]. . . . [Based] on what we were able to do back-to-back years, Marquette should be highly ranked, Creighton should be highly ranked, [and] Xavier should be highly ranked. . . . Still we got buried by the committee last year.”

He called the Big East, “the best basketball conference in the country.”

In the preseason poll of Big East coaches, St. John’s was tabbed fifth. UConn got every other coach’s first-place vote to come in at the top. Creighton, Xavier and Marquette were behind them (in order) and ahead of the Red Storm.

The Huskies will be attempting to win a third straight national championship, a feat done only by John Wooden’s UCLA teams that captured every title from 1967 - 1973.

“You can’t hide from the opportunity.” Hurley said. “That’s why I’ve coached this team....harder than any other team I’ve coached.”

The coaches picked Creighton’s 7-1 center Ryan Kalkbrenner as the preseason Player of the Year. St. John’s Kadary Richmond was tabbed preseason for first-team all-Big East and Deivon Smith for the second team.

Donovan to be honored

Rockville Centre product Billy Donovan will have his No. 34 retired by Providence this season. Donovan led the Pitino-coached Friars to the 1987 Final Four. He went on to coach Florida and win consecutive NCAA championships in 2006 and 2007 and is currently the coach of theChicago Bulls.

St. John's women highly touted 

The St. John’s women’s basketball team was picked to finish fourth in a preseason poll of conference coaches. The team was 18-15 and 11-8 in the Big East and played two games in the WBIT (formerly the women’s NIT).

TV money rolls in 

The Big East has a new television contract with Fox. Each conference member is expected to receive 30% percent more (approximately $6.5 million) than the previous deal. There will be a second broadcast right deal – that could include cable channels like CBS Sports Network and Turner or streaming services like Amazon or Apple – to generate additional revenue.

By Roger Rubin

roger.rubin@newsday.com@rogrubin

Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.