The Big East takes on all comers in basketball -- all comers named St. Francis. Pittsburgh is playing St. Francis (Pa.), while Seton Hall and St. John's are playing St. Francis (N.Y.).

The Big East also is big on Norfolk State. Both Pittsburgh and Georgetown are playing the Spartans, who are highly coveted because of their propensity to -- let's be honest -- lose.

	Coastal Carolina fell by 27 to Courtland Freeman and the 5-0 Hoyas.

The Big East plays some of the best basketball in the country. If only its members would play more of the best basketball teams in the country and follow the lead of Notre Dame, whose ambitious early-season schedule already has seen the Irish play (and beat) three ranked teams: Marquette, Maryland and Texas. Prior to the Golden Domers' impressive week, the biggest win for the conference was West Virginia's upset to then-No. 9 Florida -- which was in Charleston, W.Va., only as a homecoming for Brett Nelson.

Irish coach Mike Brey has it figured out. Nowadays, RPI ratings tied to a team's strength of schedule are having more and more say on whether a team gets into the NCAA Tournament. It can even be better to lose to a good team than beat a bad one, as Georgia proved in 2001 by going 16-14 but getting into the NCAA Tournament because of its stringent schedule.

"Talk about a great deposit in the RPI bank," Brey told the Chicago Tribune before playing Maryland, with a game against Texas on the horizon. "These are all great RPI games for us."

Not everyone in the Big East has been such a quick study. Connecticut and Villanova were the only other league teams who entered last week with a strength of schedule ranked among the top 50 in the country.

Pittsburgh, meanwhile, may be the country's No. 4 team, but it doesn't face another ranked team out of conference. Syracuse once again plays its first nine games in the state of New York -- none against ranked competition. Boston College, a preseason favorite to challenge for the East Division title, is another team without a non-conference ranked foe. Georgetown has one shot at a non-conference ranked foe (at Duke, Jan. 8), while St. John's goes to underachieving UCLA in January, and hosts Duke in March, but faces no other ranked foes outside the Big East.

At least the Big East is consistent. This is the same conference that called off the ACC-Big East Challenge several years back because its coaches didn't want to be forced to play such high-quality competition so early in the season, every season.

Back then, it was cowardly. Now, it's illogical.

	What's The Point?
	Here's a look at some mismatches Big East teams have enjoyed this season: UConn 116, Sacred Heat 78 Georgetown 99, Grambling 46 Pittsburgh 89, Ark-Pine Bluff 49 Miami 91, Savannah St. 57 Pittsburgh 96, Norfolk State 51 Syracuse 98, Cornell 68 Pittsburgh 69, St. Francis (Pa.) 46 Georgetown 87, Coast. Carolina 60 Miami 93, N. Hampshire 58

Playing the kind of schedule concocted this season by Georgetown, Pittsburgh and Boston College paints those teams into a corner, with the only way out -- or the only way in, concerning the NCAA Tournament -- may be an upper-third finish in conference play.

The danger with that is this: The Big East is good enough that breaking even in league play is no small feat. If only its teams would prove it against better non-conference foes. Last year, the Big East ranked 15th in non-conference strength of schedule -- last among BCS conferences -- and behind such one-bid leagues as the Atlantic Sun (10th), Colonial (13th) and MEAC (14th).

Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese has studied the league's non-conference schedule, and frankly, he disagrees with the idea the league is fattening up on too many pastries. As a matter of fact, he has advised his schools to play the kind of non-conference schedule put together by Georgetown, whose non-league opponents are, in order: Grambling, James Madison, Towson, Coastal Carolina, South Carolina, Norfolk State, Howard, Virginia, VMI, Duke and UCLA.

"No one is giving Georgetown credit for what they're doing," Tranghese says. "You know (the weak teams) they used to schedule. Now they've got South Carolina, Virginia, Duke, UCLA."

But, Tranghese was asked, what about those other seven gimme games?

"So what?" he says. "I was on the (NCAA) basketball committee. I don't think it's that impressive to play 12 decent (non-conference) games. I'd rather see a team play four upper-tier games (and seven bad ones). I advise my schools to really focus on the upper-tier games, because that gives the selection committee the chance to evaluate you against the best competition."

The selection committee is starting to send the message, though, that three or four tough non-conference games isn't necessarily enough for power leagues like the ACC or Big East. In fact, the days of a Big East or ACC team winning 19 or 20 games and automatically getting a spot in the NCAA Tournament are gone. Ask Syracuse, which went to the NIT last season with 20 regular-season victories. The same thing happened to 19-win Virginia in 2000 and to 19-win Connecticut in 2001 -- two years after the Huskies won the NCAA title.

Legacies don't matter any more. It's the schedules, stupid.

After the 2001 season, when his league put just three teams in the NCAA Tournament for the second straight season, ACC commissioner John Swofford showed up at the annual meeting among men's basketball coaches. He was armed with data that showed the NCAA Tournament selection committee was depending more on RPI ratings and less on a conference's good name when filling out the NCAA field. And his coaches listened.

Last season, playing beefed-up schedules, six of nine ACC teams got into the NCAA Tournament.

Most Big East teams will try another route. They'll sprinkle a few really good teams into a sludge schedule consisting of the likes to Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Binghamton and Quinnipiac, and hope for the best.

Maybe Tranghese is right.

"I think people are overreacting," he says.

But maybe this is right. Maybe the Big East isn't reacting to the importance of the RPI, and maybe one season -- this season? -- it will pay the consequences.

Games of the Week

Mississippi State at Xavier Saturday: The Musketeers' difficult stretch continues against the Bulldogs, who are by no means devoid of talent even if center Mario Austin isn't cleared to play by the NCAA. Louisville at Seton Hall Saturday The Cardinals' Reece Gaines (22 points, 5.3 assists) and Seton Hall's Andre Barrett (15.0, 4.3) are two of the better point guards in the country. Florida at Maryland Saturday There will be no shortage of athletes in this one. Florida has the edge inside, but Maryland may have the upper hand in the backcourt with seniors Drew Nicholas and Steve Blake.

Slim Smarty
Georgia Tech's Chris Bosh isn't very strong. He isn't very heavy. He isn't very experienced.

Imagine how good he will be when he is all of those things.

As it is, the weak, slender and inexperienced Bosh has become a double-double machine for Georgia Tech, posting double figures in points and rebounds in each of the Yellow Jackets' first five games. In 28.2 minutes per game, Bosh is among ACC leaders in scoring (17.2), rebounds (11.8) and field-goal percentage (56.9). He also has more assists (13) than turnovers (11), which is rare for a freshman and even more rare for a big man -- and practically unheard of for a player who is both.

"Chris is very good right now," says Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt says. "But he's not the player he's going to be. He'll be as good as he wants, with hard work."

The 6-foot-10, 215-pound Bosh is nothing if not ambitious. He tinkered with the idea of entering the NBA draft before making the intelligent decision not to spend the next two or three years at the end of someone's bench -- or worse, in a developmental league.

But then, Bosh is nothing if not intelligent, too.

While college athletes generally don't have to meet the same admission requirements as other students, Bosh probably could have gotten into Georgia Tech -- one of the better schools in the South -- on his own merits. He was in the National Honor Society at Lincoln High in Dallas, where he made the A-B honor roll and graduated with honors. Bosh, who chose Georgia Tech in part because of its computer imaging and graphics program, was a member of the National Association of Back Engineers and the Dallas Association of Minority Engineers in high school.

And did we mention all those double-doubles?

Bosh has a knack for them. He nearly averaged a double-double this summer in five games for the USA Junior National Team, where he was sixth on the team in minutes played (19 per game) but second in scoring (10.2) and first in rebounds (9.2). The U.S. team won a bronze medal in a qualifying tournament to earn a spot in the 2003 Junior World Championships.

Bosh's reward for his patriotic service was reporting to Georgia Tech and getting manhandled by 6-8, 245-pound sophomore Ed Nelson in practices.

"Ed had some fun with him," Hewitt says. "But Chris will get bigger and stronger. That will come in time."

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