Mike DeCourcy

If you were to be reminded that West Virginia's Bob Huggins has been a head coach for 26 seasons and if you then were informed that this edition of the Big East is by far the most powerful conference in which he has competed, you might think that alone would make this a special season for the league.

Well, not really. Huggins spent most of his career in the Metro, the Great Midwest and Conference USA. None would be confused with the A.L. East. So what Huggins is going through right now is new to him. This is OK because it's new for everybody.

The Big East is just a few days from the conclusion of its first season in which all teams played 18 league games. And the reward for reaching the end is, of course, more games against league opponents in next week's Big East Tournament.

Does playing a more challenging schedule really get a team ready for the NCAA Tournament? There's no compelling evidence to that end, but telling themselves it does helps Big East coaches cope.

"There's really good players in this league. But there's really good coaches," Huggins says. "You don't go in and say, 'I might be able to trick this guy.'

"It's everything everybody says it is."

So what do they say?

"In this league, there is no relaxation," says Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun. "Every game, to some degree, becomes a war."

The Big East gave you no great reason to believe it would be this way with its performances in preconference games. Marquette earned a significant victory at Wisconsin. Pitt powered through Duke in overtime. But most of the better teams were too young (UConn), too injured (Louisville) or too careful in scheduling (Georgetown) to win the kinds of games that are impressive on final resumes.

Now UConn is older, Louisville is healthier, and Georgetown has no choice but to deal with opponents the Big East schedule mandates. Along with Notre Dame, they are the class of the league.

What separates the Big East from the other majors is that it has so many teams (16), so many capable teams (11, at least) and so many low-level teams that won't quit. It's a young league, with 16 of its top 20 scorers underclassmen, which may account for why no team has surrendered. Nearly one in four Big East games has been decided by a single possession or in overtime. That's twice as many as in the Big Ten.

Big East coaches weren't wild about the move to an 18-game league schedule, undertaken to create a stronger connection among the members and to provide television partners with a larger pool of attractive matchups. The coaches feared it might damage efforts to place as many teams as possible in the NCAA Tournament. In fact, it could help.

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Associate commissioner Dan Gavitt points out that West Virginia and Syracuse missed the NCAAs last season despite reaching the 20-win mark. "They had a bunch of conference wins, but they hadn't had enough opportunities to beat the top teams in the league," he says. "I think this gives all of our teams a more fair chance to get there."

There is no doubt playing so many tough conference games depresses everyone's poll rankings. The Big East had no top 10 teams in last week's AP poll. UConn was three spots behind Indiana, despite beating the Hoosiers on their home court in late January. Marquette was 11 spots behind Wisconsin despite that victory in Madison. It has not damaged the Big East in the RPI standings, though. There are six Big East teams in the top 25 and seven in the top 50.

Of the BCS conferences, half play 18-game league schedules (including the Big Ten, which also made the move this season, and the Pac-10) and half play 16 games. The Big East wouldn't mind if they all were doing the same thing it is. But the coaches and players are doing a lousy job of advertising its appeal.

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"It's been tough," says West Virginia point guard Darris Nichols.

"This is a brutal league," says Georgetown coach John Thompson.

The conference includes a slogan -- "Every game counts" -- in the ads it runs for games featured on the Big East Network. It ought to be "Every game hurts." But as coaches love to say, "No pain, no gain."