Big East Basketball Power Rankings Week 7

Welcome to the fourth edition of the 2010-2011 Big East Power Rankings. We're a little late this week because of the holiday, but we've pulled together just for you, dear reader. As you know, we've been doing this every-other week until Big East play starts, and now that it is mercifully here, we're going to kick it up to a weekly feature, so check beck next week. 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.

Oh sweet lord, the Big East is back. I don't even care that the conference opener featured UConn losing to Pittsburgh, that's how happy I am to be back in conference play. Now we'll have it all, the fierce competition at the top, the rough-and-tumble style of play, the gimme wins against the bottom five teams and of course, the terrible, terrible officiating. Welcome back John Cahill and Tim Higgins, I look foward to screaming at you through my television for the next three months.

Anyway, now that we've wrapped up the majority of non-conference play, everyone seems to have sorted themselves into helpful little groups that will probably be useful for another ten days, tops, before everything goes to hell.

First up, you have your five powerhouses, and I'm sure you could guess them even if I wasn't going to list them. These are the five schools that have run the Big East for the last decade. Pitt, thanks to their win over UConn is on top. Syracuse and Georgetown, who for my money are the two best teams in the conference right now, follow right behind. After them, you have two slightly flawed but mighty dangerous teams in Villanova and UConn.

After that, you had a pretty substantial drop off in points, but you get to a middle group of teams that can certainly beat you, but probably won't win the league. Pretty much everybody agreed on the placement for these teams, so at least for now, all the voters all in agreement. Louisville, Notre Dame, WVU, Marquette, Cincinnati and Providence? This is you.

Of course, then we have the dregs. St. John's saved a little face and tied Rutgers at the top of this group by virtue of not doing anything as humiliating as losing to Fordham. Meanwhile South Florida and DePaul are locked in an impressive struggle for 16th place.

For our Hater Vote of the Week, we're going with Anonymous Eagle who told me he dropped Syracuse to 4th as a direct result of the well-deserved mocking that Sean over at Troy Nunes gave National Marquette Day. However, despite searching pretty hard, I couldn't find a good Homer Vote of the Week. I suspect that has to with the fact that preseason play sorted out everyone into neat little groups like I described above, because I sure as hell don't think it means we all suddenly became objective.

1. Pittsburgh (6) (13-1, 1-0): 186 points  -- Last Poll: 3

2. Syracuse (3) (13-0): 176 points -- Last Poll: 1

3. Georgetown (2) (11-1): 168 points -- Last Poll: 4

4. Villanova (10-1): 156 points -- Last Poll: 5

5. UConn (1) (10-1, 0-1): 153 points -- Last Poll: 2

6. Louisville (11-1): 124 points -- Last Poll: 6 

7. Notre Dame (11-1): 117 points -- Last Poll: 7

8. West Virginia (8-2): 107 points -- Last Poll: 9

9. Cincinnati (12-0): 98 points -- Last Poll: 8

10. Marquette (9-3): 88 points -- Last Poll: 10

11. Providence (11-2): 72 points -- Last Poll: 11 

12 (tie). Rutgers (9-2): 56 points -- Last Poll: 12

12 (tie). St. John's (7-3): 56 points -- Last Poll: 14

14. Seton Hall (6-6): 36 points -- Last Poll: 13  

15. South Florida (6-7): 21 points -- Last Poll: 15

16. DePaul (6-6): 17 points -- Last Poll: 16

Past rankings: Week 1 | Week 3 | Week 5

Individual ballots after the jump.