Tasser: Pitt tops competitive Big East

This past week, the Pitt men’s basketball team tightened its grip on the Big East… This past week, the Pitt men’s basketball team tightened its grip on the Big East regular-season title with a big road victory over No. 10 Villanova and a solid home win over South Florida. In the Villanova victory, neither team’s top 3-point shooter played, and it showed — the two teams combined for just 4 of 25 shooting from beyond the arc. The game broke the Wildcats’ 46-game win streak at the Pavilion, their on-campus arena.

The rest of the conference remains a battle, however. St. John’s has won three in a row, including a big win against Connecticut. The Huskies rebounded from that loss with a victory over red-hot Georgetown, snapping the Hoyas’ eight-game win streak, which included victories over Villanova, Louisville and Syracuse. Louisville was upset by Cincinnati, one game after barely surviving against the Orange. Syracuse beat West Virginia after losing two straight to Georgetown and Louisville. Meanwhile Notre Dame has quietly put up a seven-game win streak. Whew.

Big games this week include UConn at Louisville tonight; Pitt at St. John’s and Notre Dame at West Virginia tomorrow; Syracuse at Villanova on Monday; and the 2011 Backyard Brawl 2.0: West Virginia at Pitt on Thursday.

Power Rankings

1. Pittsburgh — The Panthers remain without leading scorer and 3-point shooter Ashton Gibbs, who is hobbled by a left knee injury. They continue to show offensive diversity, however. Brad Wanamaker scored 21 points and Nasir Robinson poured in 15 and recorded seven rebounds in the Villanova victory.

2. Notre Dame — The Irish have padded their win streak with mostly Big East bottom feeders, but they do have big wins over Pitt and Louisville in there. Ben Hansbrough and company will play three more unranked teams before finishing out the season with Villanova and UConn. They could very easily take a 12-game win streak into the conference tournament.

3. Connecticut — Behind leading scorer Kemba Walker’s 31 points, the Huskies bounced back from an ugly loss to St. John’s to upend the Georgetown Hoyas. The Huskies are now in a four-way tie for fourth in the conference and still have Louisville and Notre Dame on their schedule.

4. Georgetown — The Hoyas’ win streak has been broken, but seeing as they only play one ranked team — No. 20 Syracuse — over their last four games and are in sole possession of third place in the conference, things still look pretty good.

5. Louisville — The Cardinals just keep pluggin’ away, but they cannot seem to find a rhythm. They are 8-5 in conference play but haven’t won more than two consecutive conference games and were just upset by Cincinnati. This could be a problem come tournament time, when stringing together victories is literally a necessity.

6. Villanova — The Wildcats remain in a bit of a funk. They lost a very physical three-point game to Pitt — three technical fouls, 50 shots from the free throw line and one punch thrown. But that was sandwiched in between a loss to unranked Rutgers and a bad, three-point victory over lowly Seton Hall. Worse still, they have Syracuse, Notre Dame, St. John’s and Pitt over their last five games.

7. Syracuse — The Orange are just 2-4 against ranked conference teams, and when they lose, it takes them a while to stop the bleeding. All six losses this season have come over an eight-game conference span, with losing streaks of four and two only separated by a two game win streak over UConn and USF.

8. St. John’s — The Red Storm break into my top eight this week with their victory over UConn. They have some great wins — Georgetown, Notre Dame, Duke and UConn — but also some horrific losses: St. Bonaventure and Fordham early on, a loss to Cincinnati and big losses by a large margin to Notre Dame, Syracuse, Louisville and Georgetown. Their season is like seeing a member of the opposite sex who seems attractive, until he or she smiles at you and you notice that he or she doesn’t have any teeth.