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Jays fans, wasn't Hacksaw a Creighton fan? Hope he is still around and can work his magic.

The only drama left in the Big East season is to see which of the five candidates gets to participate in the Play In Game.

HoosierPal wrote:The only drama left in the Big East season is to see which of the five candidates gets to participate in the Play In Game.

Which makes getting the 1 seed more important too so you can avoid them.

Dew wrote:

HoosierPal wrote:The only drama left in the Big East season is to see which of the five candidates gets to participate in the Play In Game.

Which makes getting the 1 seed more important too so you can avoid them.

The way I see it, it doesn't matter that much which is a 1 or a 2. To me here are three tiers in the standings, top two, bottom three and then the rest. Whoever finishes in the 7th hole will be trending down, and has to play an extra game. So I don't think it really matters today who gets the 1 or the 2, as I don't see a clear cut advantage for either slot versus the play in victors.

The only asterisk in this is that St. Johns gets a homecourt advantage, so I guess you would want to avoid them as long as possible. But as of now, no telling where they will end up. So you never know, the 2 hole may end up better than the 1 hole if St. Johns finished 4th or 5th.

My apologies if there's a picture above that's not showing up on my screen and this is redundant, but through February 16th, if the season ended today...

1.) Creighton (11-2) (Creighton has head-to-head tiebreaker over Villanova after sweeping season series)
2.) Villanova (10-2)
3.) Marquette (7-5)*
4.) Xavier (7-5)
5.) Providence (7-6)*
6.) St. John's (7-6)
7.) Georgetown (6-7)
8.) Seton Hall (4-8)
9.) DePaul (2-10) (Head-to-head tiebreaker over Butler)
10.) Butler (2-10)

* = Marquette and Xavier split their season series 1-1. The next tiebreaker is record against the best team in the conference, then 2nd-best, and working your way down the table. MU and XU are both 0-1 against Creighton, both 0-1 against Villanova, and the next best team is Providence and St. John's tied at 7-6. PC and SJU split their season series 1-1, so going to the next tiebreaker, Providence is 1-0 vs. Creighton, and St. John's is 1-1, putting Providence in 5th place. MU is 1-0 against Providence, and Xavier is 1-1, putting Marquette in 3rd place.

Big East Tournament Wednesday
#8 Seton Hall vs. #9 DePaul
#7 Georgetown vs. #10 Butler

Big East Tournament Thursday
#1 Creighton vs. Seton Hall/DePaul winner
#4 Xavier vs. #5 Providence
#2 Villanova vs. Georgetown/Butler Winner
#3 Marquette vs. #6 St. John's

If Creighton gets the 1 seed, I think I would rather Xavier be in the 4/5 game than in the 3/6 game. Assuming a first-round win, I think Xavier stands a much better chance of beating Creighton than beating Villanova, simply due to matchups. Defensively Xavier doesn't match up well with Creighton, but Creighton could say the same when they're on defense. I don't like the idea of a "See who can score more" versus Creighton, but I like it a little more than trying to beat Villanova.

notkirkcameron wrote:My apologies if there's a picture above that's not showing up on my screen and this is redundant, but through February 16th, if the season ended today...

1.) Creighton (11-2) (Creighton has head-to-head tiebreaker over Villanova after sweeping season series)
2.) Villanova (10-2)
3.) Marquette (7-5)*
4.) Xavier (7-5)
5.) Providence (7-6)*
6.) St. John's (7-6)
7.) Georgetown (6-7)
8.) Seton Hall (4-8)
9.) DePaul (2-10) (Head-to-head tiebreaker over Butler)
10.) Butler (2-10)

Just for grins, care to speculate on the final standings? Here goes mine:

1. Creighton
2. Villanova
3. St. Johns (tie breaker over MU)
4. Marquette
5. Providence (tier breaker over X)
6. Xavier
7. Georgetown
8. Seton Hall
9. DePaul
10. Butler

Tie breakers are a little too involved to be precise with 5 or 6 games to go, but I gave it a shot.

HoosierPal wrote:

Dew wrote:

HoosierPal wrote:The only drama left in the Big East season is to see which of the five candidates gets to participate in the Play In Game.

Which makes getting the 1 seed more important too so you can avoid them.

The way I see it, it doesn't matter that much which is a 1 or a 2. To me here are three tiers in the standings, top two, bottom three and then the rest. Whoever finishes in the 7th hole will be trending down, and has to play an extra game. So I don't think it really matters today who gets the 1 or the 2, as I don't see a clear cut advantage for either slot versus the play in victors.

The only asterisk in this is that St. Johns gets a homecourt advantage, so I guess you would want to avoid them as long as possible. But as of now, no telling where they will end up. So you never know, the 2 hole may end up better than the 1 hole if St. Johns finished 4th or 5th.

As a Jays fan, I'd say that with the standings where they are right now I could not disagree with you more. RIGHT NOW, I think it is a HUGE difference between getting the #1 seed vs. the #2 seed. As a Jays fan, the teams I most want to avoid from the #3 spot on down are St. John's (for obvious reasons -- bad, bad matchup for the Jays, on a roll, home court, etc.), Xavier (again, I think it's one of the worse matchups for the Jays across the board), and G'Town (because the guards for the Hoyas are fully capable of putting a team on their back in a tourney setting and causing all kinds of trouble), and Providence (Cotton can take over and Providence's overall length can cause problems -- but the lack of depth could be a real issue come tourney time). Almost every one of those teams is on the #2 side of the bracket, and I don't think Jays fans would be overly concerned about the other three teams on the #1 side of the bracket right now.

Obviously the tourney is a time when anything can happen. Hell, SH could go on a crazy run. Anyone can knock off anyone on a given night. But from a fan perspective, I would be WAY more nervous about almost every team on the #2 side of the bracket than those on the #1 side.

Just my opinion, which other Jays fans might not share.

Oh, and if SJU keeps up its run, I think I'd prefer to just be on the opposite side from them in the tourney, be that the #1 or the #2 seed. I think it's entirely likely that they end up in the #3 spot and X ends up in the #6 spot, actually. And it's pretty crazy that the #3 seed is Xavier at 7-5, while the #6 seed is SJU at 7-6 -- those are nearly identical records, leaving lots of room for a lot of shifting between #3 and #7 (even G'Town at #7 is only another game back right now) between now and the end of the season.

I'm

Still 5 or 6 games left for everybody, there's no way to know or predict the final standings especially with the tiebreakers involved. Hell with 1 or 2 games left it will still be practically impossible to predict. A team could easily fall from 3 to 6 in the very last game of the regular season. Been there, done that.