Val Ackerman, the commissioner of the Big East, has her own offices now, and a full staff, and an email system, and a host of corporate sponsors, and all of this has made Year 2 of the new league considerably less rocky than the first.

There is another element that has seemingly sorted itself out over the past six months: the basketball.

In fact, the level of play this season from the Big East’s 10 members — all of them private colleges with no top-tier football programs — has risen perhaps above and beyond even the most sanguine expectations.

There was the .761 winning percentage against teams from other conferences. Then the league finished the regular season second in Division I in Rating Percentage Index — behind only the Big 12 — with three teams ranked in the top 25. Entering the Big East tournament, which began Wednesday at Madison Square Garden, six Big East teams are projected to play in the N.C.A.A. tournament — as many as the Atlantic Coast Conference and twice as many as the Pacific-12.