Posted by ESPN.com's Brian Bennett

It's been said that the Big East is a basketball league. But who knew they were talking about the league's quarterbacks?

The conference's roster of signal callers has a distinct hoops feel these days. You know about Greg Paulus, the former Duke point guard who is now starting under center at Syracuse. West Virginia's Jarrett Brown has moonlighted for the Mountaineers' basketball team under Bob Huggins. And new South Florida starting quarterback B.J. Daniels played 19 games for Stan Heath's basketball Bulls last season.

Throw in Cincinnati's Tony Pike, who is 6-foot-6 and starred in high school as a basketball player, and you'd have a pretty good all-quarterback quartet on the hardwood.

This week brings a dual-sport duel, with Paulus and the Orange playing host to Daniels and the Bulls.

"They both have great feet and both have leadership qualities," South Florida coach Jim Leavitt said. "I see some similarities with the feet and the mannerisms. Does it help? I think any time you play another sport at a pretty high level and certainly the sport of basketball, my gosh, it's not going to hurt any, that's for sure."

The common thread between these former hoopsters is that all have great athletic ability and can move around in the pocket. They've also got great vision, which is key to distributing the ball in both sports.

Syracuse coach Doug Marrone was looking for someone to run his offense like a point guard when Paulus basically fell into his lap. It seemed like a crazy experiment, but it's time now to declare that experiment a smashing success.

Paulus has completed 68.4 percent of his passes and is averaging 222 passing yards per game with six touchdowns against four interceptions.

"I can't say enough about it, I really can't," Syracuse coach Doug Marrone said. "It's really phenomenal what he's done."

If they can keep finding quarterbacks like these, Big East football coaches will gladly accept the basketball league moniker.