Jonathan Daniel, Getty Images Notre Dame's Chris Quinn, middle, pulls down a rebound in front of Boston College's Jared Dudley. Notre Dame hopes eight conference teams will be going to the NCAA tournament. Click photo for larger image. Related article: Five things to watch for in college basketball this week: 3/2/05 & Just push play TV highlights

Eight might be enough to fill our lives with love, but will eight be the magic number for the Big East come NCAA tournament time?

Some experts, such as RPI guru Jerry Palm and ESPN "bracketologist" Joe Lunardi, seem to think so. ESPN analysts Digger Phelps and Jay Bilas are not so sure.

One thing is clear: Georgetown, West Virginia and Notre Dame hope so.

That's because those three teams are all considered to be on the bubble for an at-large berth in the tournament. All appear closer to being in the field than out of it, but all still have some work to do to secure a place.

If all three make it, the Big East will set a record by becoming the first conference to put eight teams into the field. That means an eighth of the field will come from one conference, which makes one wonder how teams such as Seton Hall and Providence would fare if they weren't in such a stacked conference.

Eight bids for one conference sounds like a good thing, but, in reality, it probably is not.

It seems fundamentally wrong that a team that finishes in eighth place in a league of 12 is rewarded with a chance to win the national championship.

And what exactly has Notre Dame done to prove it belongs in the national championship hunt? The Fighting Irish are 16-9, but 10 of their wins came against teams not in the top 100 in the RPI, the rating system based on schedule strength. They have wins against Boston College, Connecticut and Villanova -- all at home -- but are 4-6 in their past 10 games and have a loss to Michigan (RPI 148).

Yet the Irish are considered a lock by many analysts. If they beat Pitt Saturday, the Irish will erase almost any doubt about their worthiness. That leaves West Virginia and Georgetown, who, with RPIs of 55 and 68, are in dangerous territory.

Regardless of how well these three finish, their fate might not entirely be in their own hands. That's because bubble teams often bounce into or out of the tournament field based on the number of at-large spots available after the conference tournaments end. Every year, some spots assumed to be available disappear because regular-season champions from mid-major conferences lose in their conference tournaments.

It says here one of the Big East's bubble teams will be left out, and the league will get seven NCAA bids.

A tougher road

Think things are bad this year in the Big East, wait until next year.

The road will get tougher for teams in the middle of the pack. Regardless of what hot air the NCAA committee breathes about not counting bids per conference, there is no way selectors will pick 10 teams from the new 16-team Big East to join the field of 65. Nine will be a stretch.

Yet, that's what the geniuses who put together the new Big East will argue next year at tournament time when it has 12 or 13 teams with a sound argument for inclusion.

If the new conference were operating this season, 11 teams would be considered. They are seven tournament hopefuls in the current Big East (Boston College is not counted because they will move to the Atlantic Coast Conference) plus Louisville, Cincinnati, DePaul and Marquette, with the latter two on the bubble.

That would make for some interesting discussions for the tournament selection committee. The results of those discussions will have a lot to do with the stability of the league for the long haul. If the committee were to choose only six or seven teams from an expanded Big East, the idea of a 16-team mega-power conference will suddenly lose its appeal to half of the membership.

A team to watch

One wonders if bitterness will preclude former Washington football coach Rick Neuheisel from picking the Huskies to go far in his NCAA tournament bracket pool. Neuheisel was fired by Washington because of his participation in a high-stakes NCAA tournament pool. He has sued the school and the NCAA.

Some advice to the former coach: Don't let your personal feelings allow you to overlook this team. The Washington Huskies are for real.

Washington, because it plays in the Pac-10, gets little exposure on the East Coast. As a result, many people don't know much about them.

The Huskies rolled through the two Arizona schools last week to pull within a half-game of Arizona for first in the Pac-10. They are 23-4, ranked No. 10 in the latest poll, average 87 points per game and likely will finish the regular season with 25 wins. They boast wins against Oklahoma, North Carolina State, Utah and Alabama and have not lost at home.

Out for the year

The Pitt women's basketball team has had a good season in the second year of coach Agnus Berenato's rebuilding job. Pitt is 13-14 and will enter the Big East tournament as the No. 10 or No. 11 seed. (Last year, they did not make the tournament).

The job Berenato has done is remarkable considering she didn't have a full roster most of the season. Injuries ravaged her team, yet it remained competitive and has an outside shot of finishing .500.

That improbable task, however, became a bit tougher because the team's top two scorers, Marcedes Walker and Katie Histed, are out. Walker is done for the season with a shoulder injury, Histed is out for disciplinary reasons.

Despite the injury, Walker is a leading candidate for Big East freshman of the year. She is sixth in the conference in scoring (13.3 ppg), first in rebounding (9.1) and first in field-goal percentage (.489).