Big East Basketball Power Rankings Week 9

Welcome back to the 2010-2011 Big East Power Rankings. The rules are simple, we've invited the SB 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.

Here's a quick test to determine if you're one of the two best teams in the Big East: look at your jersey, if it says Syracuse or Pittsburgh, then congrats, you're on top. The Orange and the Panthers combined to collect all 12 first place votes this week, standing well above all comers.

Villanova was a near-unanimous pick as the third best team in the conference and Notre Dame locked itself in at fourth thanks to impressive wins over UConn and St. John's. The Huskies and Red Storm didn't do too bad for themselves either. A big time win over Texas kept UConn afloat despite early in-conference struggles and St. John's jumped three spots to No. 7 after taking down Georgetown.

The Hoyas plummeted though. Last week they were ranked 4th and even grabbed a first-place vote. Now? They're out of the top half of the conference and ranked as low as 11 on some ballots. The rest of the conference fills in about as you'd expect, and it still doesn't look like anyone knows what to make of Cincinnati. Their loss to Villanova raised some serious questions, but that's the only game of consequence they have played. One last note: South Florida has now played both UConn and Louisville tough. One of these days they're actually going to win one a game or two.

There wasn't a ton of homecooking this week, which is to be commended. If I had to give out a Homer Vote of the Week it'd go to Blue Demon's Lair, for slotting their boys 13th, but calling someone a homer for saying their team is 13th of 16 is pretty cold. There were no shortage of candidates for Hater of the Week though, Blue Demon's Lair placing St. John's 11th seemed like a solid contender, but then I got a look at the ballot from On The Banks, which slapped UConn down with a 9th-place vote and put Providence all the way in the basement at 16. Providence isn't great, but they're no DePaul either, so On The Banks, you're our hater for week 9.

1. Syracuse (8) (16-0, 3-0): 186 points -- Last Poll: T-1 

2. Pittsburgh (4) (15-1, 3-0): 183 points  -- Last Poll: T-1

3. Villanova (14-1, 3-0): 170 points -- Last Poll: 3 

4. Notre Dame (14-2, 3-1): 150 points -- Last Poll: 6 

5. UConn  (12-2, 1-2): 134 points -- Last Poll: 5

6. Louisville (13-2, 2-0): 132 points -- Last Poll: 7  

7. St. John's (10-4, 3-1): 114 points -- Last Poll: 10

8. Cincinnati (15-1, 2-1): 113 points -- Last Poll: 8 

9. Georgetown (12-4, 1-3): 98 points -- Last Poll: 4 

10. Marquette (11-5, 2-1): 86 points -- Last Poll: 9

11. West Virginia (10-4, 2-2): 85 points -- Last Poll: 11 

12. Rutgers (10-5, 1-2): 57 points -- Last Poll: 13 

13. Providence (11-6, 0-4): 43 points -- Last Poll: 12

14. Seton Hall (7-9, 1-3): 40 points -- Last Poll: 14

15. South Florida (6-11, 0-4): 24 points -- Last Poll: 15

16. DePaul (6-9, 0-3): 17 points -- Last Poll: 16

Past rankings: Week 1 | Week 3 | Week 5 | Week 7 | Week 8

Individual ballots after the jump.