(7) Saturday Big East Games 12/2/17

[GumbyDamnit!]

Nova plays its first true road game last night and outscores it’s “rival” St Joe’s by 40 points over the last 24 minutes. Ho hum. #spoiled

Spellman (16 pts, 11 rebs, 5 blocks 4/5 from 3) and Booth (17 pts, 8 rebs, 4/9 from 3) starting to find their legs.

[MullinMayhem]

URI is certainly not a bad team but they are a team I’d expect PC to handle with tons of seniors. Remember, PC was said by many to be top 25 worthy.

[BigEast1]

MullinMayhem URI is a very good team and most Big East teams not PC would struggle to beat them, especially at URI. Although the game was a "neutral" site, just ask Seton Hall, who was ranked and lost to them.

[hoyahooligan]

I was certainly expecting more from providence than they've shown so far this year. Lack of holt is one thing but seem to be underachieving even taking that into account.

[Edrick]

Meaning no offense to St Johns, but they’ve done absolutely nothing that would indicate that they are any different than preseason projections - and it’s laughable to say they’ve somehow done more than Providence.

This is now the conference sits, at present:


Villanova - 1
Xavier - 17
Seton Hall - 20
Providence - 36
Creighton - 37
St Johns - 45
Butler - 53
Marquette - 63
Georgetown - 72
DePaul - 128

————————
Settle down. It’s no more likely that St Johns will finish top 5 than it is bottom 3. It’s just not possible to know anything as it relates to a league with 90% of the teams in the top 75 when you have a 249th ranked schedule

[kayako]

It's pretty neat that some of the biggest rivalries in college BB feature Big East schools vs. OOC foes. Xavier/UC is a crazy rivalry.

[BigEast1]

Edrick, I will say one thing for St. John's, unlike last year when had some God-awful losses (Delaware St & LIU for example), so far they avoided that this year. They have wins against a Big 10, Pac 12 & AAC team, which last year was not happening, even against the bottom rung teams from those conferences. That said, I do believe that their next 4 games will be much more telling. 3 of those games are "winnable" even without Lovett, but as we all know, nothing is a given.

[gtmoBlue]

Hey Xavier fans... "I am a believer now". X is gonna be a very good team, possibly unseat ol' Nova.
gtmo

[DeePhence]

Seriously, the difference in what Xavier has shown this season versus what my PC team has shown is night and day.

Yes, losing to Minnesota (very good team) and at URI (pretty good team) isn't a disaster, and we haven't lost any games we should've won, but we've struggled and had to steal a few games we should have won with more ease. Too many turnovers, not enough defensive rebounds, awful FT shooting, and last night Cartwright was a no-show. We're a veteran team making freshmen errors. Loss of Holt is much bigger than I thought it would be. Cooley's teams always play better in February, though, and this year there is plenty of room for improvement. I really thought with all the experience we'd be much better. Our 3pt shooting has been a revelation, and that's basically been our one positive surprise.

Xavier, OTOH. My word. Mack is just a great, great coach. What he did last year after Sumner went down was all I needed as proof, as if I didn't have any before. I would normally detest a kid like Macura, but I wish we had him - antics aside, he is a great college player. I loved his chomp in Madison, and even if he was a d-bag to Cronin (although knowing Cronin, he brought on himself), I aplaud his choice of target to troll. Cronin is one of the biggest horse's asses in college hoops. One of you guys said that JPM has a knack for finding the most mentally weak person on the other team and getting in his head. Turns out that Cronin is the most mentally weak member of the Pussycats. Well done, JP. (Also glad you bulked up this off season and have shed the yoga outfit under the uni...that was a bad look).

Plus, Mack won the post-game press conference in a bigger blowout than the game was. Great, great job flying the BE banner yesterday. I hope he stays at XU for life.

Serioulsy, Xavier is a legit contender for this league. I see 'nova, Seton Hall and XU as equally capable of winning the league, with PC and Creighton trying to win the 2nd tier of the league (along with Butler and maybe St. John's).

PS - why do you XU fans refer to Cronin as YTG? What's that stand for?

[billyjack]

Hey Deephence,
Pretty sure XU's "YTG" for Cronin stands for "Yellow-Toothed Gnome".