Big East Coaches Release Poll and Preseason Awards

Wednesday’s Big East Conference media day was fairly entertaining, although, nothing of real significance came from the event. Well, other than the annual Big East Coaches’ Preseason Rankings and Awards. You know, when the conference’s coaches let the world know which Big East schools are going to be awesome and which players are all types of swell.

Even that is nothing of relative importance, but it does make for some good fun. It’s also neat to see how coaches view other teams and players in the Big East.

No worries, St. John’s Red Storm fans. The Johnnies do have some players on these preseason award teams and whatnot. Don’t believe me? Fine. Here is a quick rundown of the Big East Conference All-Teams:

All-Big East First Team

Markel Starks  (Georgetown Hoyas)
Davante Gardner (Marquette Golden Eagles)
Bryce Cotton  (Providence Friars)
D`Angelo Harrison (St. John’s)
Semaj Christon  (Xavier Musketeers)

All-Big East Second Team (extra position created by tie in balloting)

Cleveland Melvin (DePaul Blue Demons)
Jamil Wilson (Marquette)
JaKarr Sampson (St. John’s)
Fuquan Edwin  (Seton Hall Pirates)
Ryan Arcidiacono (Villanova Wildcats)
JayVaughn Pinkston (Villanova)

All-Big East Honorable Mention

Kadeem Batts  (Providence)
Chris Obekpa (St. John’s)

Two St. John’s players taking home All-Big East preseason awards as well as another being an honorable mention. Not too shabby. But wait, there’s more…

Player of the Year

Doug McDermott (Creighton Bluejays)

Rookie of the Year

Rysheed Jordan (St. John’s)

McDermott being predicted as the Big East Player of the Year is not too surprising. Neither is Jordan being the potential Rookie of the year.

Finally — and without comment — here is how the coaches in the Big East have ranked the teams within the conference:

Preseason Coaches’ Poll (number of first place votes in parenthesis)

Marquette (5)
Georgetown (2)
Creighton (1)
Villanova
St. John’s (2)
Providence
Xavier
Seton Hall
Butler Bulldogs
DePaul (who would have figured they would be last? Oh wait, everybody)

Okay, okay. Just one comment. Sorry, DePaul fans.

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Me, Twitter @JosephNardone