With the NFL entering its final week, there are many questions yet to be answered. Will the Lions really go winless this year? Will Drew Brees break Dan Marino’s passing yard record? Which mediocre team will win the AFC West? What will Bret Favre’s depressing post game press conference look like? But with all those questions and topics aside, lets look at college basketball and the nation’s strongest conference. The Big East still proves to be very deep as Christmas is upon us and it still possesses eleven teams with two losses or less. Conference play is just around the corner and next week there are some enticing games but lets take a look at how this week has gone thus far.
Monday saw the Big East go 7-2 with Seton Hall suffering a minor upset to James Madison 70-64 giving the Pirates their third loss of the season. The other loss came from the struggling South Florida who fell 86-63 to a solid Oral Roberts team. On the positive side, Marquette used a three-pointer with 0.4 seconds left by Dominic James to defeat Brandon Costner’s NC State Wolfpack by three. James, who had been heavily criticized last week by Casey, had 18 points along with 6 assists to lead the Eagles to their 68-65 victory. Notre Dame, Syracuse, Cincinnati, Villanova, Providence and DePaul also got wins on Monday.
Last night was a good night for the Big East as well going 3-1 with DePaul being the only loser. The Blue Demons got a career-high 32 points from sophomore Dar Tucker but it wasn’t enough as the Creighton Blue Jays, who are now 10-2 and have won seven in a row, defeated them 83-75. West Virginia’s Alex Ruoff has spent a lot of his season on the bench with a shoulder injury, but last night he tied a school record with 9 three’s en route to his career-high 38 points helping his team defeat Radford 89-54. Freshmen Darryl “Truck” Bryant and Devin Ebanks also played well, especially Bryant, who is filling in for the injured Starting point guard Joe Mazzula. Rutgers and Georgetown also had convincing wins.
No Big East teams play today or tomorrow, but on Friday, the beast of the Big East, the UConn Huskies are in action against Fairfield. Saturday has a couple intriguing games as well as West Virginia travels to Columbus to take on the surprisingly undefeated Ohio State Buckeyes on CBS at noon EST. Another game worth noting is the 8-3 UAB Blazers at the 7-2 Louisville Cardinals in Freedom Hall at 4 pm EST. Louisville was a popular Final Four pick during the pre-season and now are already with two losses (Western Kentucky and Minnesota) on the season and if they’re not careful, the high-powered three-point-shooting offense of UAB could hand the Cardinals another disappointing loss.
Next week will bring us some high-quality inter-conference Big East action each day:
Monday: #9 Georgetown @ #2 UConn
Tuesday: Seton Hall @ #14 Syracuse
Wednesday: #3 Pitt @ Rutgers
Thursday: #16 Villanova @ #25 Marquette
Friday: #14 Syracuse @ South Florida
Saturday: #3 Pitt @ #9 Georgetown
Now that’s what I call March Madness in December!
Doug Potter
When we get to early March, what do you think the final Big East standings will look like before they start the conference tournament? Please give us your predictions. Thanks!
Doug,
I’m batting a thousand – wrote an article praising Gonzaga – they promptly drop a pair. Put together a piece about the A10 – last Saturday was one the conference would care to forget. Criticized D. James in your article last week ,and he shows me what he is capable. I’m fixin’ to write a piece about the Tar Heels and how great I think they are. 🙂