By Brandon Davis

“Well, I guess the fun starts now,” Rick Pitino, University of Louisville men’s basketball coach, told reporters at his weekly press conference.
With non-conference play officially in the books, the U of L men’s basketball team will now get the opportunity to prove that they are the legitimate final four contender, they were picked to be in most pre-season publications.
But in order to do so, the Cards must shake off a less than stellar performance in the non-conference that ended with three upset losses to Western Kentucky, Minnesota, and UNLV. Though they will enter league play on a positive note with wins against arch rival Kentucky at home and on the road at South Florida and Villanova, the Cards must now prepare to make it’s way through a league that has had as many as nine teams ranked in the top 25 at one time.
According to Joe Linardi, ESPN Bracketologist, the Big East could realistically put a record of nine or even 10 teams in the NCAA Tournament this March.  
“I’ve got nine Big East teams making it in our first (projected) bracket on ESPN.com,” Linardi said. “What is really remarkable, beyond the nine teams, we have seven of them seeded one through four. That is how top heavy and how challenging the upper half of the Big East will be this winter.”
Including U of L, Pittsburgh, Connecticut, Georgetown, Syracuse, Notre Dame, Marquette, Villanova and West Virginia rounded out the teams in the Big East that were ranked inside the Top 25 as of last week.   
Though the number of intriguing match-ups in the Big East will provide some of the most exciting contests of the entire college basketball season, preparing a team to succeed in such a conference can be an enormous amount of pressure for even the most seasoned of coaches.
“It’s so difficult because of all the different teams, you never get any continuity in knowing an opponent,” Pitino said. “When we were in Conference USA, we knew when we came to Cincinnati they were going to climb our backs and knock us over. If we were playing Memphis we knew there were certain things we had to do. There’s absolutely no continuity (in the Big East).”
Pitino’s squad will not have much of a grace period before mixing it up with some of the stronger teams in the league either. Three of the U of L’s first four opponents (Villanova, Notre Dame and Pitt) are among the top 20 in the nation.
“I think every game that we play in the Big East could come down to the last seconds, like the Kentucky game did,” Edgar Sosa, junior point guard, said. “Some players don’t like (close games), but I love it. It’s just fun to me.”
But the Cards are not alone. Such difficult stretches in conference schedules is the norm for members of the Big East these days. For Example, the Georgetown Hoyas opened up their conference schedule with an outstanding victory of then No. 2 ranked UConn on the road, but sit at 1-2 in the conference after losing to Pitt and Notre Dame.
 “I used to say that the schedule would favor one team over another team (in the Big East) about three years ago when we first joined,” Pitino said. “Now it favors no one. It’s a death march for every single team.”
Over the last two years, the Cards have found ways to thrive in Big East conference play despite some of their slow starts in both the conference and non-conference play. Though U of L’s 71-57 win over South Florida last week was the teams’ first conference opening win in four years, the Cards’ have gone 26-8 in Big East regular season play in the last two seasons. They’ve also finished second in the league in back-to-back seasons. Next up for the Cards is No. 1Pittsburgh on Saturday at 6 p.m. in Freedom Hall.