Mike DeCourcy

DAYTON, OHIO - They despise each other for roughly 23 nights a year, though for some members of the Big East Conference it's a full-time job. They are all one family now, though, unless and until the feuding resumes by necessity.

"As much as we hate Morgantown, West Virginia, we were disappointed when we heard Dayton pulled the upset," Pitt point guard Levance Fields said. "We battle all year long, but when we get into tournament time, we want to see all of us advance."

The Big East brotherhood might last a few more days before the Big East bloodbath reconvenes, but they're going to enjoy it now. Seven teams from the conference were invited to the NCAA tournament, and most appear determined to hang at this party until the last Vitamin Water is empty.

There are five still in this thing, still alive now that the initial 65 teams have been hacked down to 16. The fab five: Pitt, Louisville, Connecticut, Villanova, Syracuse. That's never happened before, not even in the legendary Big East of 1985. The league got four to the Sweet 16 that year, and it happened that three kept playing into the Final Four.

Indeed, it helped that all five were seeded to make it this far. West Virginia and Marquette were No. 6 seeds that the selection committee expected to lose the first weekend, and they complied.

But comfortable seeds didn't prevent the ACC's Wake Forest and Florida State from dropping first-round games.

There's a reason beyond the obvious -- that all are excellent teams -- why the Big East is enjoying such tournament success.

"As I look back," Louisville coach Rick Pitino said, "the Big East prepared us for everything."

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The most treacherous aspect of the NCAA tournament is not that everybody who makes it is a quality team. It's that they all play such disparate styles. Playing in a league as vast and diverse as the Big East -- 16 teams, many with elite coaches -- makes it more difficult for any team's tactics to be entirely unfamiliar.

The ACC, though loaded with talent, more competitive at the bottom and more accomplished in the regular season, tends to be a bit more homogenized.

Pitino said the speed and intensity of Villanova and Marquette, and their preference for slapping down on balls driven into the lane, gave the Cardinals some idea what to expect from Siena, ultimately their victim in the second round.

"Every Big East team is different," Louisville guard Preston Knowles said. "You have slap-down teams, physical teams, teams that like to run and teams like Pitt that like to slow it down. Being able to play against so many types of defense, so many types of teams, it definitely prepares you for what you see in the NCAA tournament."

Tournament rules mandate that teams from the same conference cannot face one another until the Elite Eight. (Unless nine from the same league make it, which is a problem for another Big East season).

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That'll be a potential problem only in the East, naturally, where Pitt (which next faces Xavier) and Villanova (which has Duke) still remain. It'd take quite an effort, but it's not entirely out of the question that the Big East could fill every vacancy in the Final Four.

And if they got there, you might have Syracuse playing zone, Louisville with its full-court pressure, Pitt relying on low-post power and UConn standing behind its electric defense.

They're all different, but they're all brothers.

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