NEW YORK -- The Big East Conference was born in 1979 and consistently has been one of the best basketball leagues in Division I. It annually produces some of the country's best teams, sends numerous players to the NBA and is known for its depth of quality teams.

Even with all the conference has accomplished the past three decades, most of the league coaches and administrators are convinced this season will be its best or, at the very least, the most competitive in Big East history.

The Big East, which sent eight teams to the NCAA tournament last season, has a wealth of talent returning, a large group of highly regarded incoming freshmen and lower echelon teams that are expected to be tremendously improved. There could be as many as eight teams ranked in some preseason polls, and nine teams have been ranked in one poll or another.

"In my 33 years of coaching I can honestly say I think this will be the finest league in the history of college basketball in terms of its depth and in terms of the number of returning players," Louisville coach Rick Pitino said yesterday at the Big East men's basketball media day at Madison Square Garden.

"I've never seen a league with 11 teams that could be ranked in the top 30. I think any speaking of rankings in this conference can be thrown out the window. It will be very interesting to say the least."

Just about every coach and administrator at media day echoed Pitino's sentiments.

But the question on everybody's mind was, will the league be too tough, thus leaving teams battered and bruised for the NCAA tournament, when the relative strength of a conference is measured? And could some tournament-worthy teams be left behind come March?

West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said he's glad he's not at a point in his career where he needs a lot of wins in order to save his job because there won't be any easy nights.

"Fortunately, being older and having a little more job security, I think it is going to be kind of fun," he said. "But man, if you are young and trying to build something, it can be brutal. I mean, take a team like Villanova, for instance. They have everybody back from a Sweet 16 team and in any other league would be picked as one of the favorites.

"Yet, in this league, I've seen Villanova picked as low as seventh or eighth in some publications. How can that be? It is just an unbelievable league."

Villanova was picked to finish fifth in the coaches' preseason poll released yesterday, but the Wildcats are one of several teams that could repeat what they did last year -- finished tied for eighth in the regular season and then made a run to the Sweet 16.

To understand why so many coaches are bracing for a regular-season schedule that commissioner Michael Tranghese called "18 nights of hand-to-hand combat," take a quick statistical glance at the returning players: 13 of the top 18 scorers, 10 of the top 11 rebounders, the top nine in assists, the top seven in blocks and in steals and seven of the top eight 3-point shooters.

Of the eight teams to make the NCAA tournament a year ago, only Georgetown suffered significant personnel losses -- Roy Hibbert, Jonathan Wallace and Patrick Ewing, but the Hoyas still return three starters -- and teams at the bottom, such as Providence, St. John's and Rutgers, have significant personnel returning.

"All of us understand this -- you are one key injury, one bad stretch of games or a little bit of bad luck away from going from the top half of this league to the bottom," said Villanova coach Jay Wright. "And the teams at the bottom are all closing in and capable of filling into your spot if you fall. It is really a league where every night you better come ready to play or you will get beat."

Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun, who is the league's second-longest tenured coach behind Syracuse's Jim Boeheim, remembers the conference's glory years of the late 1980s and early '90s with teams stockpiled with future NBA stars.

He said the quality at the top of the league is comparable to those memorable years but what sets the league apart now is that the bottom is much stronger, even though there were only nine teams then, not 16.

"The best that the league was when we had five top 15 teams out of nine. Think about it -- five top 15 teams out of nine, but we had three teams at the bottom who weren't very good so at least you got six wins out of them and that made life a little easier," he said.

"Now, there isn't a bad team in the league, not one team that you can just show up and beat. Not one. The league is better than it has ever been, that's a fact."

Tranghese, who has been the commissioner since 1990 but joined the league as its first full-time employee in '79, agrees. But that doesn't necessarily mean it will be able to duplicate the 1984-85 season when the conference had three teams in the Final Four, he said.

"I'm telling you 1985 was so unique, I don't know that anyone will ever do that again. I've never judged how good we are by how many teams we get to the Final Four -- to me it is how many teams do we get to the tournament, how many make it to the regionals -- and I have to tell you we have a lot of teams, maybe as many as 12, who are capable of doing that. It is scary and it is probably too difficult -- but we'd all rather be here than anywhere else."