There really weren't any true marquee teams. Providence, Syracuse, and Georgetown were all well regarded, but it isn't like they were regularly battling Marquette, UCLA, UNC, and other truly top tier schools for titles. They were pretty regular in the tourney and had chances to go to the Final Four if things broke right, but they weren't really any more potent than Villanova is.

Georgetown became a beast in short order. Within 5 years they were a premier program, but while they got there in the 1980s they were not there in the 1970s before the founding of the Big East.