Postgame Thoughts -- 'Nova 77, Duke 54

Well, you don't have to look too hard to get the point of this night in NCAA Tournament history. The Big East won three of the four Sweet 16 games played tonight -- two of them easily. At this very moment, it's pretty hard to like Oklahoma's or Arizona's chances on Friday night, or Missouri's on Saturday. The Big East is flexing muscles, baring fangs, dropping its collective shoulder and knocking down all of college basketball on its way to history's hoop. The conference is guaranteed one Final Four entrant (either Villanova or Pitt will make it) and still has a chance to grab all four spots. Only one conference has ever had as many as three in the Final Four and that was...yeah. The Big East. In 1985.

The most emphatic statement came in the night's final game, in which Villanova completely manhandled Duke. And I mean, completely. Duke shot 27 percent from the field in its 2009 Sweet 16 game. That's appalling. That's a rotten three-point shooting percentage, and in this game it was Duke's number for all shots. The Blue Devils made exactly 16 more shots than you and I did tonight, dear reader. Sixteen. There's no impossibly nasal Mike Krzyzewski explanation that can suffice for a number like that.

Duke started the game with a 5-0 lead before Villanova ended it on a 77-49 run. After those first five points, the Wildcats threw a heavy blanket on the Blue Devils, and the result was suffocating. Nova's defense wore Duke down so badly that the Devils' legs were shot by the midway point of the second half. Their shots were coming up short. They were slow on the boards. They looked tired and confused and worn down long before the final buzzer buzzed, and we're talking about one of the very best teams in one of the other conferences that put seven teams into this dance.

The result was that the game became easy for Villanova. They ran the plays and got the shots they wanted to get on offense, and they just kept on pulling away.

Villanova-Pitt on Saturday? I know I'll be watching. Nova won the game earlier in the year when DeJuan Blair got in foul trouble, and that foul trouble detracted somewhat from the predictive value of the game's result. If Blair plays the whole game...well, just ask Xavier what happens. Nova is playing much better right now, and coming in hotter. But this is a Big East game, and those are tough to pick.

Think about this: Villanova can win the national championship in a scenario in which their last three games are against Pitt, Syracuse and either Louisville or UConn.

There remains a chance that North Carolina or Oklahoma can still crash the party in Detroit and make this year their own. But nothing we saw tonight detracts from the idea that this is a Big East year all the way. And that it's a bad idea to get in the BEast's way.