Big East Basketball representative Villanova was the last team standing in the 2018-19 season. Will that make the Wildcats the preseason favorites for next year?

For the past few seasons, Villanova has been the flag bearer of Big East Basketball, with a pair of national championships to show for it. That doesn’t mean they’ve been dominant in the league.

Not many outside of the Big East will even remember that it was, in fact, Xavier who won the regular season title for the first time since changing conferences.

But the Musketeers, along with a few other teams will be going through some roster upheaval, with several key seniors moving on. The Big East will head into the 2018-19 season a lot young as a whole than they were for the last few years.

There seems to be a consensus as to who will start things out No. 1, as well as who once again stays at the bottom. Everywhere in between is another story, with a bunch of teams similar in talent. With so many bids expected to come from this league, the bubble games will once again be fun to watch.

Here is how I rank these teams early on for 2018-19.

*All recruiting rankings listed are courtesy of 247sportsComposite

*All stats listed are courtesy of sportsreference.com/cbb

10. St. John’s Red Storm 16-17 (4-14)

The wins over both Duke and Villanova late in the season saved Chris Mullin’s job and made another .500 season more tolerable. But the losses of Marcus LoVett and Tariq Owens aren’t going to be replaced so easily.

It could be even worse if leading scorer Shamorie Ponds, whose stock rose big-time after huge performances in conference play, decides to remain in the draft. The hope is that transfer Mikey Dixon, who averaged 16.5 ppg in his first year at Quinnipiac can be a prime scorer in the Big East.