Xavier’s main goal in the Big East Tournament is to avoid UConn. The Musketeers have played with every other team in the conference, even playing Creighton even after a blowout and leading Seton Hall significantly before doing a bit of self-tripping on that one as well. Still, they’ve been with everyone… except UConn.
Losing to Villanova complicated things on Tuesday. That plunged Xavier right into the mix of the 8/9 game that would face the top seed, presumably UConn. Xavier’s only chance of making the NCAA tournament is to win the BET, so meeting UConn in the second round would be just about the worst possible scenario.
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But then, something good happened. On Wednesday UConn played with fire one too many times in Big East play and dropped a game to a Creighton team that functionally went eight deep. That, paired with St. John’s 12th straight win, moved the Huskies down to second in the Big East. Those teams meet next Wednesday in a game that could well serve to decide the Big East. It also makes the 8/9 game something more palatable with SJU and then the winner of the 4/5 matchup (currently Seton Hall and Creighton) waiting.
But wait, there’s more! Seton Hall is trying their level best to throw away the Big East’s fourth tournament bid. Last night, they dropped a game to DePaul (a Q3 loss at the worst possible time) that dropped Hall’s NET to 50th and continued their slide from mid-January to now. That also moved DePaul a game ahead of Xavier, Georgetown, and Butler into the sixth spot. Providence sits a further game back at 4-11.
So what does that all mean? It means that, first off, Xavier needs to win the Feb 28th game against Georgetown to assure themselves of the tiebreaker there. They also probably need to win at least two and likely three of their last five to get into the seventh slot. What still matters the most is avoiding UConn, which means anywhere from seventh to tenth could now be perilous.
Xavier to some extent still controls their own fate. Their next three games are against three of the teams in that large group scattered around four and five wins. (Butler, Providence, Georgetown). Beating those very beatable teams at least gives X a chance at the six seed. That six seed could be absolutely vital because it means a bye on the first day and could mean missing UConn until the final if the Huskies win the conference regular season.
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Make sense? X is still in with a chance to grab that six seed and help themselves out. UConn still lingers out there somewhere in the mist like Ye’iitsoh. Maybe not for the usual reasons, March promises to be interesting.
