The Bizarro Big East Continues

I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again by the end of the season a few more times: The Big East Conference has stopped making sense.

There used to be a reasonable amount of logic to the season. Teams everyone expected to be good would be good and win games they were supposed to win. Occasionally you'd get a team flare up and be better than expected, but once you figured out they were pretty good, they followed the model of winning games they were supposed to.

That's all out the door this year. Down is up, right is left, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!

We had 5 Big East games last night. Only one of them made sense, and based on how this season has been going, it didn't even make that much sense.

Hit the jump, and we'll get into this.

1) Pittsburgh defeated Providence, 86-74. This is the game I was just mentioning. The Panthers used runs of 7-0 and 8-0 in the first half to build a 15 point halftime lead and coasted in from there. This is Pitt's first Big East win of the season. Let's be honest: You all thought there was a solid chance Pitt would lose this game.

2) NR/#25 Louisville defeated Villanova, 84-74. This one gets the crazy tag because 1) the Cardinals had to rally from a 44-39 halftime deficit and 2) Cardinals fans got into a Twitter fight after the game with SI.com's Andy Glockner over whether or not Louisville was an elite program whose fans shouldn't get too fired up about beating Nova. SPOILER ALERT: Glockner thinks more of UL's program than UL fans.

3) St. John's defeated West Virginia, 78-62. On the verge of being ranked in both polls, the Mountaineers went up to MSG and got completely dumptrucked by a Red Storm team that started five freshmen. And it wasn't even that close. St. John's went up 21-6 and never looked back. Ever seen a team completely waste a 26 point, 14 rebound performance from the conference's leading scorer and rebounder? If you saw this performance from Kevin Jones, now you have.

4) DePaul defeated Rutgers, 69-64. Yeah. DePaul. They have now won as many Big East games this season (2) as they won in the previous two seasons COMBINED. I turn the commentary here over to CBSSports.com's Jeff Goodman:

5) Notre Dame defeated Seton Hall, 55-42. GAH. Games like this make it hard for fans like us to take the "What you're doing isn't actually basketball" road with Big Ten fans. Notre Dame led 19-18 at the half! GAAAH. As much as Notre Dame sitting at 5-3 and tied for 4th place is bizarre, Seton Hall opened up the Big East schedule 4-1, providing a big component of the Bizarro Big East to start with. Now they've lost 3 straight with their next three against Louisville, Marquette, and Connecticut. Their losing streak is just as bizarre as their early rise. But Paint Touches put it best, following Seton Hall's lowest point total in 7 years: