The excitement is back at MSG this week, which can only mean one thing: The Knicks are on a road trip.

While they vacate the world’s most famous arena, the Big East has the floor for its annual conference tournament. And with the league being one of the deepest in the country this season, it’s likely to create some high drama this weekend.

Today’s semifinals pit four quality teams in Georgetown, West Virginia, Pittsburgh and the winner of Thursday’s late Marquette-Notre Dame game. While that may disappoint some who were hoping Connecticut and Louisville would win yesterday and put four top-15 teams in the semifinals, the current pairings are hardly a letdown — all four teams had winning records in the conference and won at least 23 games overall.

West Virginia in particular is a giant-slayer lying in the weeds. I know it’s hard to fathom since the Mountaineers were on the NCAA tournament bubble until squeaking past Providence in the opening round on Wednesday, but they’re absolutely on par with more heralded teams such as Georgetown.

This underscores the essential difference between the seedings for the NCAA Tournament and the rankings that a numerical analyst will give you. The NCAA isn’t allowed to consider factors such as victory margin — it’s just plain wins and losses for them, and for that reason West Virginia takes a back seat behind several other teams.

Close losses, like the Mountaineers’ two-point loss to No. 4 Tennessee and one-pointers against Georgetown and Pitt, don’t help much in the NCAA’s eyes. And their 19 double-digit victories — a staggering total for an alleged bubble team — can’t be used as a factor in their favor.

In truth, West Virginia might be the best team in the conference. Using victory margin and schedule strength, USA Today’s Jeff Sagarin rated the Mountaineers as the nation’s eight-best team heading into yesterday’s games, the best of any Big East squad (Louisville is 9th, Marquette 10th, and Georgetown 12th). That ranking should only improve after their impressive 78–72 win over Connecticut in Thursday’s quarterfinals.

The unquestioned star was Mountaineers’ forward Joe Alexander, who destroyed the Huskies with 34 points and turned the final two minutes into the Watch Joe Dunk Show. The 6-foot-8-inch junior is the top threat on one of college basketball’s most experienced teams — in this day and age, it’s unusual to see a major program with no freshmen in the rotation and only one underclassmen starter — and that’s another reason to like West Virginia this March. They won the NIT a year ago, so they know their way around tournaments, and coach Bob Huggins has been through these wars plenty of times before.

But they won’t get to Saturday’s final unless they can beat the league’s regular-season champion, Georgetown, in Friday’s first semifinal. Georgetown advanced with an 82–63 win over Villanova that leaves the Wildcats’ NCAA Tournament hopes in question. Here’s how the math works for ‘Nova: Seven Big East teams (Georgetown, Louisville, Connecticut, Marquette, Notre Dame, Pitt, and West Virginia) are basically assured a ticket to the Big Dance. The Cats are the best candidate for an eighth bid, after they all but ended Syracuse’s hopes in a first-round win on Wednesday. But a lot of good things need to happen for Villanova to get in. Already, teams like San Diego and Western Kentucky have usurped available bids by unexpectedly winning their respective conference tournaments. Were this same situation to play out in a league like the Mid-American Conference or Conference USA, causing conference heavyweights Kent State and Memphis to then grab an at-large bid, it would further damage their hopes.

If you haven’t gathered yet, I don’t think they’ll get the nod when all is said and done, and I think this is a fair outcome. The fact they lost to fellow bubble denizen St. Joseph’s during a five-game losing streak in early February likely ends up being the killer. As for Georgetown, it was an impressive win because they were able to rout ‘Nova despite a scoreless, four-turnover outing from 2009 Turkish League Rookie of the Year Roy Hibbert.

Seriously, this is the part the college basketball analysts don’t mention when they laud kids for staying in school: Hibbert may have cost himself millions of dollars by not coming out last year, when he was a certain lottery pick. Instead the 7-foot-2-inch center enters the draft with more question marks after failing to show improvement this year. It probably doesn’t help that his coach inexplicably has him wheeling and dealing from the high post like he’s Vlade Divac instead of crushing smaller opponents on the blocks.

Fortunately, Georgetown shot a ridiculous 17-of-28 on 3-pointers, and save for a brief nap early in the second half when they allowed ‘Nova to regain the lead they were in control the entire afternoon.

In the semis, it may again come down to 3-point shooting. The Hoyas surround Hibbert with four long-range aces in Jonathan Wallace (42.9% on the year, including some NBA-range bombs against ‘Nova yesterday) Jesse Sapp (38.8%), Austin Freeman (37.2%), and DaJuan Summers (33.3%). While their Princeton-influenced offense is set up to generate back-door cuts, those cuts create open 3s on the weak side as often as they do a direct lay-up for the cutter.

In West Virginia’s case the 3-point bombing is more concentrated. While Alexander mainly operates in the paint, Alex Ruoff (40.3%) and Darris Nichols (37.3%) bomb away from deep — the two combine to take more than 11 3-point tries per game.

The other interesting aspect is the match-up of Alexander against Summers. Alexander comes in on a torrid five-game stretch where he’s averaged 29.4 points per game, so obviously the Hoyas need to respect his scoring ability. He only put up seven points against Georgetown in their one meeting this season, a 58–57 Hoyas win, but he was recovering from a groin injury at the time and came off the bench. That won’t be the case tonight.

The latter semifinal will pit, er, Pitt against the Marquette-Notre Dame winner. Jamie Dixon’s Panthers are playing a less plodding style than in recent years, so fans can actually stay awake during their games. But this remains a bruising team. Pitt surprised Louisville in overtime last night behind 21 points from Sam Young, who combines with freshman strongman DeJuan Blair to give Pitt one of the league’s top frontcourts.

jhollinger@nysun.com