Big East preseason preview closes with UConn tagged as early favorite, St. John’s highlighted in 2026-27 title picture

The 2026-27 men’s college basketball preseason forecast for the Big East has reached its final stop, with CBS Sports publishing its “expert picks” for the conference’s projected order of finish. In the preview, UConn is identified as the league’s early favorite, a positioning that frames the season’s central question around whether the Huskies can separate themselves from the rest of a conference that consistently produces NCAA Tournament-caliber teams.

CBS Sports’ Big East preview is part of a broader three-week run of preseason predictions across multiple power conferences, and the publication emphasizes that this is the fifth and final installment in that series. The structure matters because it reflects how early-season projections are being bundled into a single narrative arc for fans, with each league getting its own expert forecast and a curated look at the key storylines heading into the year.

Within the Big East section itself, the article’s framing centers on UConn’s status as the team to beat, while St. John’s is specifically referenced in the headline sequence of the preview. That pairing, UConn as favorite and St. John’s as a name to remember, indicates how CBS Sports is distributing attention in the early projection: one program carrying the most weight in the title discussion, and another with enough upside to be treated as part of the conversation.

Preseason “order of finish” lists do not function as standings, but they do shape expectations. When a conference’s early narrative is anchored by a single team being favored, other programs are typically measured against how quickly they can close the gap through nonconference play and early conference matchups. In practical terms, teams that are not being tabbed as the top favorite often carry a “prove it” urgency into November and December, because the first Big East results tend to confirm or complicate those preseason assumptions.

There is also a second layer to CBS Sports’ approach. The expert-picks format is designed to map out the season’s pecking order before the year’s real data arrives, then to refresh those impressions as the calendar flips toward conference play. Even when the exact projected placements are disputed later, the exercise usually helps identify which matchups and roster roles are expected to define the race for the top tier of the league.

As the 2026-27 season gets underway, the primary test of any preseason projection is whether it holds up under the pressure of real game environments. For Big East fans, the next step is watching how UConn handles its early schedule and how St. John’s performs when matchups begin to resemble the consistent intensity of conference basketball. If those two trajectories move in opposite directions from the early forecast, the preseason discussion will quickly evolve into a more crowded title picture.