The Holy Land of Hoops

3 games Wednesday in the Big East:

6:30pm, St John's at #6 Xavier, FS1.
8pm, Creighton at #3 Villanova, CBS-SN.
8:30pm, Marquette at Seton Hall, FS1.

Early start at the Cintas.
Daniel Ochefu is not available vs Creighton.
Seton Hall with an opportunity to further solidify their resume.

Xavier should roll.

Usually, Villanova destroys teams on campus (Providence game was in the Wells Fargo Center), but without Ochefu, I think it will be a dogfight. I still expect Villanova to win, but it won't be easy.

Seton Hall has nothing to gain in this Marquette game. Marquette is a bad loss according to every metric, especially at home, though Marquette has enough talent to win the game. Hope SHU pulls it out.

MackNova wrote:Xavier should roll.

Usually, Villanova destroys teams on campus (Providence game was in the Wells Fargo Center), but without Ochefu, I think it will be a dogfight. I still expect Villanova to win, but it won't be easy.

Seton Hall has nothing to gain in this Marquette game. Marquette is a bad loss according to every metric, especially at home, though Marquette has enough talent to win the game. Hope SHU pulls it out.

Marquette is interesting.... Just looking at their Ken Pom projections, they are raw projected to win 1 game the rest of the season- home with Georgetown(and that's at 50%). But when you look at all the percentages for 3 of their projected losses 47,47,46- they say they should go 3-6 the rest of the way. The Seton Hall is only a 15% chance win. So if they can beat Seton Hall- and then still win 3 other games- they would be up to 19 wins. Looking at RPI forecast, 19 wins gets Marquette into the top 100, which would stop being a bad loss.

Now if they only do win the 1 game the rest of the way, their RPI is 145. Marquette end of the year being a normal or bad loss is extremely questionable right now.

stever20 wrote:

MackNova wrote:Xavier should roll.

Usually, Villanova destroys teams on campus (Providence game was in the Wells Fargo Center), but without Ochefu, I think it will be a dogfight. I still expect Villanova to win, but it won't be easy.

Seton Hall has nothing to gain in this Marquette game. Marquette is a bad loss according to every metric, especially at home, though Marquette has enough talent to win the game. Hope SHU pulls it out.

Marquette is interesting.... Just looking at their Ken Pom projections, they are raw projected to win 1 game the rest of the season- home with Georgetown(and that's at 50%). But when you look at all the percentages for 3 of their projected losses 47,47,46- they say they should go 3-6 the rest of the way. The Seton Hall is only a 15% chance win. So if they can beat Seton Hall- and then still win 3 other games- they would be up to 19 wins. Looking at RPI forecast, 19 wins gets Marquette into the top 100, which would stop being a bad loss.

Now if they only do win the 1 game the rest of the way, their RPI is 145. Marquette end of the year being a normal or bad loss is extremely questionable right now.

We were projected to lose the Butler game as well so the come back has already started

Your schedule is pretty tough rest of the way. 5 road games 4 home games- with all of the home games pretty tough teams. Like I said- you can see with the schedule them going 1-8 or 2-7 if things went wrong. But also they have home games with PC, Creighton, Nova, Georgetown- so probably 3 very winnable games there- and then on the road games with Seton Hall, X, DePaul, Creighton, Butler- so like 4 very winnable games there. So could go like 6-3 or 7-2 if things went well.....

They maybe more than anyone could either be a good loss or bad loss. Just depends on what happens last 9 games.

stever20 wrote:Your schedule is pretty tough rest of the way. 5 road games 4 home games- with all of the home games pretty tough teams. Like I said- you can see with the schedule them going 1-8 or 2-7 if things went wrong. But also they have home games with PC, Creighton, Nova, Georgetown- so probably 3 very winnable games there- and then on the road games with Seton Hall, X, DePaul, Creighton, Butler- so like 4 very winnable games there. So could go like 6-3 or 7-2 if things went well.....

They maybe more than anyone could either be a good loss or bad loss. Just depends on what happens last 9 games.

I agree, I think we win 4 unless they show up tonight and Saturday looking like they did against Butler because the way we played Saturday was reminiscent of the teams that went to 8 straight tournaments.

The Pirates really need this game to start out this huge homestand on the right foot. They've taken care of business on the road so far, picking up 3 solid wins, but have struggled at home in conference play going just 2-2 with the wins coming over DePaul (barely) and St. Johns. That needs to turn around now. They should go 3-0 in this stretch and anything worse than 2-1 is unacceptable.

St. John's @ 6 Xavier, FS1 - Joe Davis, Bill Raftery
Line: XAV -23.5
O/U: 148

Creighton @ 3 Villanova, CBSSN - Tom McCarthy, Steve Lappas, Jon Rothstein
Line: NOVA -12.0
O/U: 145.5

Marquette @ Seton Hall, FS1 - Tim Brando, Jim Spanarkel
Line: HALL -7.0
O/U: 147.5

Is Geoffrey Groselle playing today?

50/50 chance at best. I don't think he will play.