Top 50 players on Big East rosters

This includes transfers and players out for the year because of injury, and it is from the website rscihoops.com which uses a composite of all of the top 100 rankings.

Villanova 6
UConn 5
Louisville 3
Georgetown 3
West Virginia 2
Cincinnati 2
Pittsburgh 1
Syracuse 1
Notre Dame 1
DePaul 1
Marquette 1
Seton Hall 1
Providence 0
St. John's 0
South Florida 0

This shows how important it usually is to have top 50 players. Every team that has more than one is a top 25 team, or in the case of Cincinnati, about to be one. The only two Top 25 teams that has just one top 50 player also has a superstar. That would be Wesley Johnson at Syracuse and Luke Harangody at Notre Dame.

To show you how this translates to Pitt, last year you could say that they had two such players. DeJuan Blair was one and Sam Young was ranked No. 58 officially, but one of the rankings used did not count fifth year high school seniors which Young was. Without being unranked there, he would have been top 50. So two top 50 players, in their prime, and Pitt has their best chance ever for the Final Four. It's not a coincidence.