Villanova is OK, but the Big East’s balance could hurt come NCAA Tournament time
The balance of the conference has not helped the NCAA Tournament resumes of eight teams, all of which have three wins as compared to seven for the Wildcats and Marquette.
The tendency for people who look at the Big East standings is to rub their eyes, or clean their glasses, or look at the game-by-game results to see whether the listings are correct.
Before last weekend, eight of the 10 conference teams had four losses apiece. Once the weekend action ended, those same eight squads each showed three wins, trailing first-place Villanova (7-0) and No. 2 Marquette (7-1) by a mile.
More than half the season remains in the 18-game conference season, so there is time for some to break away and punch their ticket to the NCAA Tournament. It’s looking a little shaky now, though.
“I said it at the beginning of the year that the parity in our league is really the most it’s been,” Villanova coach Jay Wright said. “What it looks like right now, obviously, is not what it’s going to look like at the end. I think there will be some teams that separate themselves at the end and get up to the top.”
Since the beginning of the reconfigured Big East in 2013-14, the conference has sent four, six, five, seven, and six teams to the NCAA Tournament. Right now, the numbers projected by ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi have four teams going, but St. John’s (last four byes) and Seton Hall (last four in) are barely hanging on.
Villanova has moved up to a 4 seed, up from 6 a week ago, in Lunardi’s bracket. The Wildcats were ranked 21st Tuesday in the NET rankings and improved to 4-2 in Quadrant 1 thanks to last week’s victory at Butler.
Wright said his team’s losses to non-conference teams, including Penn (Quadrant 2) and Furman (Quadrant 3), might skew the league’s overall rating.
“In the past, Villanova would always do a good job in the non-conference, and then teams would beat us and it would help everybody,” he said. “We didn’t do our job in the non-conference this year, so that affects the league. Seton Hall did and Marquette did, and that’s something that’s going to affect us a little bit.
“But you can see that Seton Hall beat Kentucky and won at Maryland, and they’re middle-of-the-pack in this league, which I think shows you how good the teams are.”
The Pirates won over Kentucky at home and at Maryland, but are struggling at 3-5 in the Big East, watching their NET rise to No. 64 with a 2-5 record against Quadrant 1 teams.
Marquette (NET No. 19) had the best non-conference season among Big East teams, defeating Louisville, Wisconsin and Buffalo, all ranked as of Tuesday in the NET top 20.
Temple in need of wins
The Owls could have picked up a much-needed Quadrant 1 win Sunday but blew a 14-point halftime lead and lost at home to Cincinnati to drop to 1-3. Their NET ranking stayed relatively stable at No. 60, but wins the rest of the way are vital, particularly in Thursday night’s rematch against Houston on the road.
Temple not only needs wins over the Cougars and the upper echelon of the AAC to improve its NET number, but it also has to avoid losses to lower-tier teams such as Tulane, which they will visit Sunday.
“In our world, we have to win every game unless we are going to win the conference tournament," Owls coach Fran Dunphy said after the loss to the Bearcats.