West Virginia from the Big East Conference traveled across the country and beat UCLA at Pauley Pavilion, 60-56, after leading by as many as 20 on Saturday. That same day, Big East member Georgetown handed top-ranked Duke its first loss and, as a result, Connecticut - another Big East team - became the No. 1-ranked team in the nation.

At collegerpi.com, where Jerry Palm has what he thinks is the closest approximation to the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) computer platform used by the NCAA to help choose and seed teams for its postseason basketball tournament, six Big East teams are ranked in the top 20; eight are in the top 50; 11 in the top 70. And that doesn’t count Louisville, a Final Four participant last season, which is 79th, or St. John’s, which at 10-6 is only 109th even after recent wins over Louisville and Pittsburgh.

There’s still nearly six weeks before the NCAA hands out its bids to the 65-team tournament. Thirty-one of them are guaranteed to winners of conferences, either by winning a conference tournament or the regular-season title.

When you consider that the Big Ten has seven teams in the RPI’s top 30, it’s possible that half the at-large bids could go to two conferences. No conference has ever gotten more than seven bids, but it seems likely to happen this year because there has never been a conference like the 16-team Big East.

The Big East already had five teams win NCAA titles as members of the conference - Connecticut (twice), Syracuse, Villanova and Georgetown. And when the league expanded this year it took in Louisville, Cincinnati and Marquette, which also had won NCAA titles.

One rule tweak the NCAA made last year was in anticipation of the newly gigantic Big East. Under old rules, teams from the same conference couldn’t be drawn to meet until the regional finals. This year, teams from the same conference can meet as early as the second round.

For Pacific 10 purposes, its third- or fourth-place team might be fighting for an NCAA bid against a seventh- or eighth-place Big East team. And the computer may not treat them well. Right now the Pac-10 has no teams in the RPI top 10; two in the top 20 (No. 16 Arizona and No. 17 UCLA) and only three in the top 90 (Washington is No. 34). Despite Pac-10 coaches continuing to say they expect four or five bids, three seems the best they can hope for.

NCAA Basketball betting odds: Bodog

Odds to win 2006 NCAA Basketball Title:

Duke 8/5

NorthCarolina 30/1

UConn 3/1

Texas 7/1

College Basketball Prediction: Just four letters: D - U - K - E.

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