Big East Basketball Power Rankings Week 3

Welcome to the second edition of the 2010-2011 Big East Power Rankings. Yes, I know it says week three in the headline, but we're only doing this every-other week until Big East play starts. The rules are simple, we've invited theSB Nation (or friend of SB Nation) blog for each team to cast a vote. They rank the teams from one to 16 and then we bring you the results. Enjoy.

Man, was I looking forward to introducing this week's power rankings. My beloved UConn Huskies went on an absolute tear in the past two weeks, beating two top-10 teams and generally showing the world that the Huskies are back. If there was ever a week for the Huskies to make the leap to No. 1 and give me a full platform for gloating, this was going to be it. But then something rather unfortunate happened. My colleagues either refused to be swayed by the UConn's rediscovered dominance, or they let their petty jealousy of Jim Calhoun get the best of them and they voted Pittsburgh first. Jerks.

Anyway, just because they refuse to overrate a team based on three games doesn't mean I have to do the same, because UConn's is No. 2 baby and they have four* shiny first-place votes in their back pocket (*Blue Demon's Den was unable to vote, but I've been assured he was in the Huskies corner). You poor saps thought you'd have another year to try and steal a Big East title before the Huskies were back, but you didn't count on Kemba Walker turning into some sort of otherworldly force. Huskies, baby; Huskies.

You know who else did well this week? Notre Dame. Apparently starting 7-0 is a good way to climb in the polls as the Irish reached all the way up to sixth place, which is pretty impressive considering the five teams ahead of them are all ranked in the Top 15 of this week's coaches poll.

Georgetown and Syracuse both kept up the good work, and have been duly rewarded. One question though, can someone tell me if Villanova is any good? Depending on what ballot you look at, they're somewhere between the second or the eighth best team in the conference and that confuses the hell out of me.

This is supposed to be a "down year" for the conference, but take it from the guy who tabulates the votes, this sucker is still deep. When Marquette comes in at 11th place, you know you're in good shape.

Of course, there is the bottom of the conference, which is well, bad. How bad? Well, we all agreed to add TCU this week just so we could have DePaul be lower than 16th. That bad.

On to your homer and hater votes of the week. First, the Homer Vote of the Week, which goes to well, TheUConnBlog. I can (and will) defend our choice to slot UConn in at No. 1 based on last week, but still, it's just three games, and if I wasn't a UConn fan, I'd have to admit that that Pitt team seems pretty damn impressive. Since I'm feeling schizophrenic, our Hater Vote of the Week is going to Friar Blog and The East Coast Bias who voted UConn No. 4. I mean, really guys? They beat two Top-10 teams, what else can you ask? The worst part is that both kept Villanova above the Huskies, despite the Wildcats' loss to Tennessee. 

Enjoy the rankings, see you in two weeks.

1. Pittsburgh (6) (7-0): 155 points  -- Last Poll: 1

2. UConn (4) (5-0): 148 points -- Last Poll: 7

3. Georgetown (6-0): 133 points -- Last Poll: 3

4. Villanova (5-1): 127 points -- Last Poll: 2

5. Syracuse (6-0): 125 points -- Last Poll: 4

6. Notre Dame (7-0): 107 points -- Last Poll: 9

7. West Virginia (4-1): 99 points -- Last Poll: 5

8. Louisville (4-0): 94 points -- Last Poll: 10

9. Cincinnati (5-0): 77 points -- Last Poll: 12

10. St. John's (4-1): 74 points -- Last Poll: 8

11. Marquette (5-2): 68 points -- Last Poll: 6

12. Providence (5-1): 47 points -- Last Poll: 14

13. Seton Hall (2-3): 35 points -- Last Poll: 11

14. Rutgers (3-2): 34 points -- Last Poll: 15

15. South Florida (4-3): 27 points -- Last Poll: 13

16. TCU (4-2): DePaul +1 points -- Last Poll: NR

17. DePaul (1-4): 10 points -- Last Poll: 16

Past rankings: Week 1

Individual ballots after the jump.