Ok again there are rankings and there are conference projections.
The Big East projections do NOT take any out of conference games into consideration. This is why there is overall standings and conference standings.
Being projected 8th in Big East does not translate as you are a bad team. The difference between 3rd and 7th last year was 1 game. We made the tourney finishing in 7th place.
The point is again if we can't beat Butler at home (we get a pass for no Mustapha) then we are going to have a tough time against everyone.
It sounds like you're putting more weight into Butler's projected finish in the Big East than looking at their body of work on the court to this point in the 2019-2020 season. I understand that their body of work was out of conference however the NCAA committee looks at every game, not just league opponents. Furthermore if you're going to evaluate a team, are you going to evaluate them off their preseason predicted finish or off their W-L record to date in the current season?
No objective pollster would rank Butler as the 8th best team in the BE if they made this prediction today.
Not sure how you're making the connection that losing to Butler last night will make it hard for the Johnnies to beat any team in the league.
I suppose you could say that if you mean that on any given night any team in the Big East can lose to any other team in the conference because it's as deep and there's as much competitive balance as ever. In that sense, sure.