Trietley: All 16 Big East teams should make NCAA Tournament

With football season over and the NHL playoffs, baseball and the Pirates’ two weeks of… With football season over and the NHL playoffs, baseball and the Pirates’ two weeks of relevance still months away, you’re going to hear a lot about the NCAA Tournament in the coming weeks.

ESPN.com already has the “bubble watch” scoreboard filter to monitor teams on the border of making the tournament, even though Selection Sunday doesn’t take place until March 14. Bracketologist Joe Lunardi updates his tournament projections weekly, just in case that Texas vs. Long Island matchup stays true. But who knows what can happen in the Northeast Conference tournament?

On March 14, the tournament’s selection committee will examine ­each team’s season record. The committee selects 65 teams for the tournament, with 31 of those bids going automatically to respective conference tournament champions.

If the process were up to me, though, I’d throw out all the big wins, embarrassing losses and analyst banter by simply inviting the Big East teams to the tournament.

I’m sure this is the fourth time this week you’ve heard some braggart heap praise on the conference — and for that, I’m sorry. But the most entertaining games this season, with a few exceptions, have been in the Big East. Let’s just put all 16 teams in one region, have it double as the conference tournament and put the ACC-Big Sky matchup in another region.

Pitt’s the No. 1 seed, and the Panthers play No. 16-seed DePaul in my alternate-universe madness. “Won’t somebody think of the mid-majors?” you ask.

Well, the Blue Demons are basically as good as a mid-major —a school that competes in a small Division I conference.

They have about the same resume as a typical No. 16 seed, and, hey, they almost beat Louisville. So the real mid-major automatic bids who win their conference tournament can go play on the other side of the bracket.

In addition, if the Blue Demons have a solid showing on national television, maybe a good recruit will be watching and decide to inject life into the program.

Villanova earns the No. 2 seed, taking on South Florida in the first round. Now, South Florida isn’t very good, but if I’m bringing along 15 other Big East teams, I might as well take the Bulls as well. The Wildcats have a thing for struggling as a No. 2 seed, so maybe this matchup’s second-half score will scare half of Philadelphia.

I give Notre Dame the No. 3 seed and a first-round game against No. 14-seed Rutgers. The Fighting Irish play the “we should be seeded higher, but we don’t care one way or the other, but we should be seeded higher” card, which has a tendency to backfire in the tournament. Rutgers epitomizes a No. 14 seed, possessing a young coach on the rise and the team smarts to hang out with more talented squads.

One warning: With both programs running a, shall we say, patient offense, the final score could be a disappointing 31-25.

Louisville and Providence meet in the intriguing No. 4 vs. No. 13 matchup. The Friars beat the Cardinals last month, and by also beating Villanova they have a better track record than most years’ No. 14 seeds. CBS, the broadcast home of the tournament, can prepare the revenge-themed opening montage tomorrow, with a big demonic-looking cardinal making caw noises and everything.

I’m giving Kemba Walker of Connecticut the No. 5 seed so he can play No. 12-seed Seton Hall again. The Pirates just played Walker last weekend, and they led for most of the second half — until Walker, I’m told, passed to himself and knocked down a 3-pointer. I’m giving Jeremy Hazell a mulligan and letting the Pirates have another shot at Walker and the rest of the Connecticut Walkers.

Syracuse is my No. 6 seed, and Georgetown is No. 7. That leaves West Virginia, Cincinnati, St. John’s and Marquette. All four programs dominate a ranked team one night and a drop winnable game the next, so I’ll pull the seeds out of a hat — I assume at some point on Selection Sunday the committee deems this a suitable method, too.

The hat lottery yields the following: Syracuse plays West Virginia, Georgetown faces Marquette, and St. John ’s plays Cincinnati.

I’m hesitant to pick a winner for any of these games. If the Big East Conference has shown us anything, it’s that anybody can beat anybody on a given night — which makes it perfect for the tournament.