With nearly a month of college basketball games played to date, Joe Lunardi has released an updated bracketology post on ESPN.com. Joey Brackets had the most Big East teams in the field — 6 — of the preseason bracketology that I profiled just before the season started last month. He also had the Friars as an 11 seed, topped only by Jerry Palm at CBSSports.com who had Providence as a 9 seed. Here is where Lunardi sees Providence and the rest of the Big East as of December 8, 2015.

Providence

Lunardi has Providence all the way up as a 5 seed in the Midwest region. He has the Friars playing the winner of a 12 seed play-in game between Arizona State and Northern Iowa. I’m sure Ed Cooley would love to be a 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament in 2016, but he also might like to have the opponent set in stone on Selection Sunday this year.

The Rest of the Big East

Lunardi has a total of 5 Big East teams in his field of 68, which means 1 team he had in the field in his preseason bracket has fallen out. That team? Marquette. Villanova and Xavier are both 3 seed in Lunardi’s bracket, while Butler is a 5 seed with the Friars. Georgetown is an 8 seed. While the league has no 1 or 2 seeds they also don’t have anyone in the lower half of the seed line and having 4 teams with top 5 seeds would be a very solid showing for the league. Obviously the only thing that will matter at the end of the tournament is how the Big East teams did in the tournament, but Lunardi’s bracket shows how strong the league is — at least the top half of the league — this season.

Providence’s Non-Con Opponents

Michigan State leads the pack of Providence’s non-conference opponents. Lunardi has them as a 1 seed and it appears he has the Spartans as his top 1 seed. They are in Providence’s region. I’d pay to see that re-match in March. Another one of Providence’s opponents in the Wooden Legacy also got a top 4 seed from Lunardi. Arizona is the 4 seed in the West region. Rhode Island didn’t make the field of 68 but they are in the “Next Four Out” category at this point.

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