The Villanova Wildcats men's lax team has been picked to finish 3rd this year in the Big East by the coaches. In addition, Kevin Cunningham, Matt Bell, and Chris Creighton were all named to the coaches preseason all-conference team.

Click the link above and you'll be able to listen to the 5 pm ET press conference where the Big East will announce the additions of Boise State, San Diego State, Houston, Central Florida & SMU.

The future Villanova PG will undergo back surgery shortly, and then will undergo 6-8 weeks of rehab. He's expected to be active again in March.

Yep, sounds about right.

Hope you can read French!

H/T: VUHoops

Fifth-year senior Tim Abromaitis tore the ACL in his right knee in practice today and thus, will miss the remainder of the season. Abromaitis was the lone offensive star to return from last season's Notre Dame squad.

Yet another school has said no to joining the Big East; this time it's Brigham Young University. The two sides had been talking for weeks, but when the issue of TV rights for football games arose, BYU wanted to retain the rights for its home football games, and the Big East would not allow that. Again, the conference and its expansion plans are back to square one.

A big reason Villanova is off to a 3-0 start stems from the play of junior Dominic Cheek. He averaged 22 points and 6 rebounds over the stretch of games against Monmouth, Lasalle, and Delaware. As a result, the Big East named Cheek to this week's Big East Honor Roll.

The former Michigan State signee (class of 2011) will be visiting Villanova in addition to Drexel, Wagner, Georgetown and Seton Hall.

Put this on hold until Texas and Oklahoma make their moves, but once those guys head off to the Pac-12, I think this is a very real possibility.

It's debated every year; does playing a grueling Big East hoops schedule hurt teams come NCAA Tournament time? Many teams exited early last year, but the Huskies of UConn did win the title, so there's a give and take. Cincinnati head coach Mick Cronin thinks there may be some correlation here, as he states, I’m starting to get maybe of the opinion that it might not be good to win the regular season. You’re going to grind out so many wins, you wonder how many wins that team is going to have left in them. Now, obviously that’s going to be our goal. But you just wonder if you’re better off getting hot late in the season.

Any thoughts on this topic from the readers?