The Big East Conference really looks like a beast now.

The league had a lot of hype in the preseason, talked up as the nation's toughest conference in college men's basketball.

There was no question about that yesterday when the NCAA tournament selection committee gave league members Louisville, Pittsburgh and Connecticut No. 1 seeds. North Carolina is the other top seed.

It's the first time a conference has been awarded three No. 1 seeds.

"That speaks so many volumes," Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun said.

In the preseason, Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon and Calhoun said they worried league teams would beat each other up and hurt each other's chances of getting No. 1 seeds. Instead, the league reaped rewards, though it fell one bid shy of the NCAA record-tying eight berths it had last season.

"All of us who watched the league understood we had a very special year," said Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese, who will retire this year. "It's been validated by getting three No. 1 seeds."

The NCAA selection committee chose Louisville, the Big East regular-season and conference tournament champion, as the overall No. 1 seed.

The Cardinals open Friday in Dayton, Ohio, against the winner of tomorrow's play-in game between Alabama State and Morehead State. If Louisville wins its first- and second-round games, it will head to the Midwest Regional in Indianapolis the following weekend.

Pittsburgh is No. 1 in the East Regional, North Carolina in the South and Connecticut in the West. Pitt and Connecticut tied for second in the Big East. Both lost in the quarterfinals of the league tournament.

Connecticut lost to Syracuse in a six-overtime epic. Syracuse advanced to the tournament final against Louisville, which no doubt helped get the Orange a No. 3 seed in the South Regional.

Louisville has won 10 in a row since losing at Notre Dame by 33 Feb. 12. The Cardinals last reached the Final Four in 2005 under coach Rick Pitino.

"(Pitino's) teams are always good late," ESPN analyst and former Vermont coach Tom Brennan said. "That's a good thing to bring to the table."

The Cardinals are led by senior Terrence Williams, a first-team all-conference forward who averages 12.3 points and 8.5 rebounds, and junior forward Earl Clark, who averages 14 points and 8.8 rebounds. The team's most impressive asset is a suffocating defense that forces opponents to shoot 39.3 percent on field goals and 30.4 percent on 3-pointers.

Pittsburgh has a chiseled group behind DeJuan Blair, a 6-7 forward who shared Big East player of the year with Connecticut's 7-3 center, Hasheem Thabeet.

Connecticut lost a leading scorer when Jerome Dyson suffered a season-ending knee injury. Calhoun thought that might prevent his Huskies from getting a No. 1 seed. Connecticut was swept this season by Pitt.

When the seeds were revealed, Calhoun said he was "somewhere between exceptionally happy and half-surprised."

Tranghese said his satisfaction in the three No. 1 bids was tempered by the daunting challenge ahead. "The ultimate test is going on and winning the tournament," he said. "That's how you're ultimately judged."

About three months ago North Carolina had an air of invincibility. The Tar Heels rolled to a 13-0 start with a starting lineup fit for the NBA.

"We thought at the beginning it was North Carolina and everyone else," ESPN's Brennan said of UNC's status as the prohibitive favorite to win this year's NCAA tournament.

By early January, the Tar Heels were brought down to earth by Atlantic Coast Conference rivals. Meantime, other national title contenders, such as Connecticut, Pittsburgh and Oklahoma, emerged.

Down the stretch it became clear Louisville, Memphis and possibly Duke and Michigan State could also be in the hunt for an NCAA title.

Just how many teams are candidates to reach the NCAA title game? "About eight," Brennan said.

North Carolina point guard Ty Lawson, the ACC player of the year, missed the conference tournament with a toe injury but told reporters he expects to return in time for the first-round game Thursday against Radford in Greensboro, N.C.

There's evenness among the top eight teams picked by the selection committee that makes it impossible to boldly talk about four favorites, let alone one.

Memphis, Oklahoma, Duke and Michigan State received No. 2 seeds. "We probably spent more time seeding this year than we have in my five years on the committee," said selection committee chair Mike Slive, the Southeastern Conference commissioner.

When it comes to fallibility, the teams' records speak for themselves. Memphis (31-3) is the only team in the tournament with fewer than four losses.

The Tigers also entered last year's tournament with the best winning percentage at .971 (33-1) and nearly won it all but gave up a nine-point lead and lost to Kansas in overtime in the championship game.

This season, the Tigers had a rocky start with losses to Xavier, Georgetown and Syracuse. They fell out of the national rankings in December but regained their footing by going undefeated in Conference USA for the third year in a row and winning at Gonzaga and Tennessee.

They have won 25 in a row, the nation's longest active winning streak.