stever20 wrote:NBC- they say 3, but Xavier is in the bracket as well...
So 4 for all the brackets. Exactly what we should expect to see...
Sounds about right. Xavier's trending upwards too in terms of efficiency statistics (they were 69th heading into the UC game and now they're 29th). The 7-game winning streak helps too. The next five games will really tell the tale:
Marquette
@Creighton
Georgetown
@DePaul
@Providence
Can they hold serve at home against a solid team and a good team? Can they somehow steal a win in Omaha (okay, not betting on this one)? Can they go on the road and secure wins against weaker teams in the conference? If they can somehow make it through this 4-1 (6-1 on the conference season), that would be fantastic. The latter half of the season involves much tougher road games, while the easier games are all at home until the last two home games of the year, Creighton and Villanova.
Georgetown has been pretty steady throughout the season, but they have a decent road challenge in front of them:
@Providence (for Xavier and Georgetown, this is a winnable game but the Friars are no pushovers)
@Butler
@Xavier
Butler can't easily afford another home loss, but Georgetown could really use the insurance in a coin-flip game.