Will West Virginia finally get the Big East Coach of the Year award? After years of John Beilein frankly not getting his due and Bob Huggins coming into the conference during Mike Brey’s best year, the odds are pretty good this might be WVU’s year.

Pretenders

Let’s automatically eliminate DePaul’s Jerry Wainwright and Rutgers’ Fred Hill. South Florida did WVU a huge favor by beating Cincinnati last night and the Mountaineers can clinch eighth place and a first-round Big East Tournament bye if DePaul lays down tonight they beat DePaul tonight. St. John’s won a really good Big East basketball game last night against Gerogetown and has been playing pretty well for a few weeks now. It’s not nearly enough, of course, and those four teams weren’t expected to do much this season and haven’t let anyone down.

What happened to?

You could see Georgetown was in trouble as early as its home loss to WVU. A team that doesn’t score and rebound just can’t win in this league. JT3 couldn’t figure things out, though how the Hoyas won at UConn remains a mystery to me. Brey won’t win the three-peat and Notre Dame’s two- or three-man bench couldn’t back up a pretty good starting five. Seton Hall had a good start to the season, but doesn’t have a bench and doesn’t seem interested in playing defense under Bobby Gonzalez.

Too little this late

Cincinnati’s Mick Cronin had his team rolling before this late collapse that likely keeps the Bearcats out of the NCAA Tournament. That said, the Bearcats were guarding, rebounding and scoring and generally playing better than a lot of people expected. He would be higher if not for four losses in five games.

No offense intended

You can’t take anything away from what Jim Calhoun has done at Connecticut. Not a dime! Ditto for Pitt’s Jamie Dixon. However, they were loaded when the season started and since neither team is undefeated or especially dynamic in a way that makes people overlook what they’ve done with what they had at the start of the season, it’d be hard to give them the award. Kind of unfair, huh? 

Contenders

You could put Louisville in the above group and there’s something about Rick Pitino that always has him in this conversation late in the year. Probably because he’s good at what he does. He’s the master motivator. His defense is unique and his offense is just hard to handle. Some of that has to do with personnel and the Cardinals are right up there with anyone in the league. Maybe the country. When Pitino gets through, look out. Of course, Louisville lost by 33 at Notre Dame, which is hard to get past, and the Cardinals always seem to have dips in the season. Then again, they seem to be peaking right now. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he won. Same goes for Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim. He’s put together another strong season despite the Eric Devendorf distraction, a season-ending injury to Scoop Jardine and in-season injuries to Andy Rautins and Arinze Onuaku. He and Rick Jackson are a lot better this season than they were last season, which can’t be overlooked. Boeheim has that ability. Yet it seems the Orange are right where they should be and their best Big East win is Sunday’s against slumping U.C. Otherwise, they haven’t beaten anyone above them and their Big East losses are to Villanova (twice), Pitt, Louisville, UConn, Providence and Georgetown.

The Final Four

So we’re left with Marquette’s Buzz Williams, Providence’s Keno Davis, Villanova’s Jay Wright and Huggins.

Begin with Williams. Should Marquette be this good? And how much does Williams have to do with it? No easy answers for those questions. The Golden Eagles were supposed to be good — No. 16 in the preseason Associated Press poll, No. 6 in preseason Big East poll — but their players, particularly Jerel McNeal and Lazar Hayward, elevated themselves this season. For Williams to win, his team needs to finish. Their 9-0 start to Big East play was stopped by USF (!) and they’re 3-3 since — wins against Georgetown, Seton Hall and St. John’s and losses to UConn, Louisville and Villanova.

Jay Wright gets no style points and you have to remember his team was fifth in the preseason conference poll and No. 23 in the AP preseason poll. Villanova’s small ball style is working and he’s effectively balanced his starting lineup and his bench into pretty equal parts without any signs of strife. Wright gets the most out of his team and his squad has been in every game except the loss at WVU. Saturday’s loss to Georgetown kind of hurts because it was at home and uncharacteristic, especially when the Wildcats pummeled Notre Dame two days later. Of course, it was just the second loss in the past 12 games, a run that included meaningful wins against Pitt, Cincinnati, Providence, Syracuse and Marquette, all in a row, and then Syracuse again a few days later. Wright’s best asset: Does he even have a first-team player on the roster? Maybe not. He does have some of the best team players, though.

Davis made the jump at the right time. He cashed in on his one-year “run” with Drake and landed with a very veteran, very potent team. The Friars could score, but Davis added defense. This wasn’t a team on anyone’s radar before — 10th in the preseason conference poll, no votes in the other polls — and is now on the cusp of the NCAA Tournament. There are no stars on the team, either, and it seems like a different player makes a difference all the time. The only question is whether he’d be in this conversation if the Friars hadn’t beaten Pitt.

As for Huggins, the minus is the team that started the season with no votes in the polls and predicted to finish ninth is probably going to finish unranked and in eighth place. There’s no “Wow!” factor there. Then again, perhaps WVU was a little too highly regarded to start? Hear me out. What were the reasons for all the enthusiasm? Three freshmen? New point guard? Two new starters? Brutal schedule? That’s nothing against WVU, which has acquitted itself nicely, but just a twist on the observation. If this was, say, the 11th team in the preseason poll, things might feel different. Back to the here and now, the Mountaineers haven’t beaten anyone in the top four of the Big East. Cincinnati’s only win during its fall is against WVU and teams like Ohio State and Georgetown, or even Miami or Cleveland State, haven’t done much since losing to the Mountaineers. But that’s not their fault. That’s also being picky. I mean really picky. In truth, you have to if want to build an argument against Huggins. The case for him is pretty clear.

– The starting point guard is long gone. A freshman has had to fill in right away. 
– The other two freshmen are much better now than they were even six weeks ago.
– Three freshmen are in the top six … and they play like they belong there.
– The starting shooting guard, small forward and power forward play point.
– Three starters are essentially playing out of position.
– The Mountaineers guard against their weaknesses.
– In two weeks time, they’ve learned to play a 1-3-1 zone and be effective with it.
– They’ve played 17 road/neutral-court games … and have won 10.
– If they’re up 10, the game’s over because — save U.C. — they don’t blow it.
– They’re improved greatly at the foul line and in rebounding.
– They take care of the ball.
– They beat red-hot Villanova.
– They’ve been blown-out once, and that Marquette game has an asterisk.
– Alex Ruoff didn’t play and Joe Mazzulla lasted six minutes against Davidson.
– Are they be doing this — 20 wins, No. 20 RPI and SOS — without a first-team player?

So Huggins could have a 25-percent chance to win and WVU could hurt or help his odds the final two games, especially Saturday with a heretofore elusive top-shelf conference win.