The Holy Land of Hoops

No action today or Monday, but a good slate this week.

Tuesday (2 games)

Butler heading to the Hall. both teams are in decent shape right now. Obviously would be. Big road win for butler while the hall wants to protect home court. I expect the hall to be ranked for this one. I am also looking forward to seeing if seton hall can maintain the great atmosphere at the Rick so far.

Georgeteon with a must win in Chicago. Georgetown loses this one and they falls t the wrong side of the bubble. Hoyas host butler and nova their next two games after the Chicago trioso an important stretch coming up for them.

Wednesday (3 games)

Johnnies at providence should be a really good one. Johnnies need a win to get some confidence back, but at the dunkin donuts center? That's going to be tough. A loss and they start 0-4, but things lighten up a bit before Duke comes to the Garden in two weeks. The johnnies schedule is softer down the stretch, so an 0-4 start is not the end of the world, but they need to turn it around at some point. A win for Providence would have them In Great shape.

Nova hosting xavier and marquette hosting Creighton. I think xavier will keep it interesting, but I'm not sure if they can win. The game in Milwaukee should be competitive.

Saturday (4games)

Marquette at xavier. Xavier really needs to protect home court to keep themselves in the conversation. They will be favorites in this one.

Butler at georgetown. What a tough week for butler, will be underdog in both their games. Losing at seri. Hall and/or georgetown isn't going to hurt their tourney chances, but a win at either of these places will be big. Georgetown needs to sweep this week, especially with Nova in Tao for MLK day.

Nova "road" game at the palestra versus Penn. An out of conference game that will impact the league's conf rpi (the internal conf games don't have as much impact as they balance out). Penn is not a good rpi team, but this is a true road game in the computer so it works for us.

Providence at Creighton. These are the games that will distinguish the tourney teams from the bubble teams. Creighton is an tough, tough place to play. Loss won't hurt the Friars too much, but it will be a tremendous missed opportunity.

Sunday:

St. John's needs to win this one, especially if they lose at PC


Teams with the most on the line this week:
Georgetown and St. John's:
Johnnies can lose at providence and be alright, but if they lose both and drop to 0-5 in conference play with a loss in the second city, my optimism on them will fade.

Hoyas need to get themselves back in the conversation. They will be favored in both games, but a home loss against butler will put the hoyas in a clear third tier behind nova and the group of secondary teams (shu, PC, butler). Win both and they are back in track.

Xavier. Losing the game in philly wouldn't hurt, but they can't go 0-2.

Teams with the most opportunity:
Butler. Going to be underdogs in both games this week. Win either of them and they are ahead of the curve. Lose both and they haven't really taken a step back.

Providence: home game against them johnnies and a winnable road game. Win them both and they probably crack the top 25. Although two losses wouldn't help.

Seton hall. Home game against another of the top half teams in the league. Loss isn't going to hurt them too much, but a win would really help them continue the momentum.

Xavier. Going 2-0 takes them off the bubble for now.

I am hoping the Friars can start to separate themselves from the pack this week. Both games will be difficult, but they have a massive size advantage over St. John's and have already beaten Creighton once. Winding up 2-0 this week would leave them 5-1 in conference and likely sitting somewhere in the Top-25 in the polls. They'd really just need ~5 more wins the rest of the way to lock in a spot in the tournament.

Game tonight is huge for the Hall. They just picked up a vital road win this past weekend so it would be very disappointing for them to waste that by following it up with a loss at home, especially with a 9 day layoff following today. Obviously every Big East game is huge for every team, but with the Hall's road struggles this year (evident both in and out of conference), they really can't afford to be dropping home games to any team that isn't significantly above their level.

I think the biggest key in this one is protecting the defensive glass. The Hall does a great job at defending opponents' first attempt of a possession, but really struggle to secure defensive rebounds and gets killed by 2nd chance point- something that plays right into perhaps Butler's biggest strength. If the Pirates can box out on defense and successfully limit Butler's 2nd chance points, they should be okay in this one (assuming Dunham doesn't go a perfect 7-7 from deep again).

Hopefully Hall and Georgetown pick up wins today.

the real big game is St John's @ Providence tomorrow. It's not totally a must win for St John's- but a loss puts them at 10-5 and needing to go bare minimum 8-7 the rest of the way(including the game with Duke) to even get to a point where they don't have to win the BET to make the tourney. It's not fatal, but it's getting pretty close to having no margin for error to make the tourney.

For Providence- it's a sneaky big game as well. A loss gets them up to 13-5. Would need to go 6-6 rest of the way to feel pretty good entering the tourney. With 3 game roadie to St John's, Georgetown, and Xavier- followed by a home game with Nova in the not so distant future- combined with road games with Nova and Seton Hall- Gets to be pretty hairy for them as well with a loss. Basically for PC right now- need to win 2/3 home games with St John's, Xavier, and Butler to feel really good.