When the Big East conference split up in March, perhaps no team benefited from it more than the DePaul women’s basketball team.

While the conference added three respectable teams in Creighton, Xavier and Butler, the powerhouse teams of UConn and Notre Dame are gone. For years, DePaul couldn’t get over the hump of beating either of them. Now, they have a straight shot to the top of the conference. Women’s head coach Doug Bruno and his team won’t admit it to be easy, but they know of the opportunity at hand. Instead, Bruno sees a conference full of ten challenging teams.

“Put it this way,” Bruno said, “what do the Southeastern, the Big 12, the Pac- Ten, the Big Ten, and the Big East have in common? None of those teams have UConn either. That’s what has got to be grasped here,” he said. “Just because we are losing UConn, doesn’t mean that there aren’t ten quality teams.”

Still, the Blue Demons have to be relieved that the conference’s depth has become a little lighter. In the past two seasons, DePaul has gone 9-7 each year in conference play. Of those 14 losses, only four schools-Villanova, Marquette, Providence and St. John’s-remain in the Big East.

Furthermore in the current Big East, Marquette and Creighton appear to be the biggest threat for the league’s top spot besides DePaul.

“Creighton beat Syracuse last year and played Tennessee on the road very close. I think you have to keep your eye on Creighton,” Bruno said. “You can’t forget about Marquette,” he added. “They’ve been getting better and they’ve been injured. Their backcourt didn’t play for them last year and now they’ve got their players backcourt healthy again. They’ve got some good freshmen.”

Those teams are a long ways away from UConn and Notre Dame. What people don’t understand is how superior those two teams, particularly UConn, are to the rest of the nation.

That’s not a knock on DePaul either. This year’s team should very well be a Top- 25 team with a deep backcourt and two star players, Brittany Hrynko and Jasmine Penny, to lead the way.

There’s plenty to look forward to with this upcoming season and the women’s basketball team is in a great position to be successful.