NCAA Sunday - Xavier vs Wisconsin...

[Jet915]

Meanwhile, if St. Joseph holds on to beat Oregon, we'd be looking at 25% of the Sweet 16 being Catholic schools (Villanova, Notre Dame, St. Joseph, Gonzaga). That's pretty cool.

If Oregon loses, that would be pretty sad, Pac-12 with 7 bids and NONE make it past the first weekend.....

[SJUBBALL]

I wonder how many brackets had St Joes / Duke happening. I hope it does

[micgoG'town]

If Villanova can get past Miami, which won't be easy, no shame in losing to Kansas. Elite 8 is where they were seeded. If it's Maryland, may as well win the whole thing. I'll be rooting against the ACC. Don't want those thieves getting 4 to the elite 8 and certainly not 3/4 to the Final 4.

[jfan]

It hurts that X lost, especially on a last second shot, but the league isn't having a horrible tournament. According to seed #'s, we should be 5-3 with 2 teams in the sweet 16. According to seed #'s we should have ended up 7-5 with no one in the FF. We are 5-4 with one team in. Not as good as we hoped but not awful either. Our final record theoretically should now be 6-5 (assuming seeds hold) with no one in the FF. We still have a chance to beat that. We win as a league and lose as a league. Some day the shot Wiscy hit will go our way or one of the teams will go on an unexpected run. As someone said, the future looks bright. Go BE.

[micgoG'town]

Villanova/ Miami Thursday at 7:10 on CBS.

[micgoG'town]

Two teams were 8/9 seeds, the worst seed you can have. Don't think much more could have been expected. Just glad Providence and Butler won the first ones.

[MackNova]

Two teams were 8/9 seeds, the worst seed you can have. Don't think much more could have been expected. Just glad Providence and Butler won the first ones.

The problem is that our 1/2/3 seeds keep losing. The league has produced 5 top-3 seeds, and only 1 has made the Sweet 16. Early exits by teams at the top (mostly Nova) wasn't balanced out by upset runs by teams at the bottom.

Obviously it's a tall task for an 8/9 to beat a 1, but once of these years, we'll need to steal one.

[HugeFan]

I just hope then st John's fans don't spend the next twelve months calling xavier an embarrassment

[stever20]

I think the frustration from this season is that back on Feb 1, it looked like the conference could have easily had 3 top 3-4 seeds, with Providence doing really well as well as Nova and X. Providence would only go 5-6 the rest of the way though and fell from being a top 4 seed easily to being a 9 seed. This year- I think even more than last year- felt like it could have been huge.

[billyjack]

I think another key factor for us, even in defeat, is how our games played out.
We have been competitive, even in defeat, mostly.
Only once did we get our doors blown off, or maybe twice, or 1 and a half times.

2014:
Xavier lost to NC State in a PIG. The deficit was single digits most of the game.
Providence lost to UNC. The Friars led by 7 with under 4 left, and lost by 2.
Villanova won vs a 16, then lost to UConn in what was a tie game with 8 to play.
Creighton won vs a 14, then got hammered by Baylor.

2015:
Providence lost to Dayton in Columbus. Tied at half. Was 4 to 8 pt deficit much of 2nd half.
St John's lost by around 10 vs San Diego State.
Georgetown beat Eastern Washington. Lost to Utah after it was tied with 4 to play.
Butler beat Texas by 10 or so. Lost in OT to Notre Dame. Dawgs were up 7 with 4 to play.
Villanova beat a 16. Lost to NC State. Dylan Ennis's three attempt for lead w 20 secs left missed.
Xavier beat Ole Miss easily. X beat Georgia State comfortably. X led Arizona by 4 with 6 to play.

2016:
Seton Hall lost to Gonzaga by 10 or so. Had it down to 6 with under 8 to play.
Butler beat Texas Tech by 10. Butler played Virginia tight. 1 possession game under 2 minutes.
Providence beat Southern Cal by 1. Lost to UNC in Raleigh by 19. PC had lead with 14 to play.
Xavier beat Weber State comfortably. Lost due to a miracle finish by Wisconsin.
Villanova blew out Asheville. Villanova blew out Iowa...

Whats my point?
There was really only one game where a Big East team got hammered start to finish. One other loss was by more than 15 points. All of our games were single digits late, except for PC this year and Creighton vs Baylor. The St John's and Seton Hall losses were both single digits at the under 8.

As a whole we compete. Also, we only have 2 losses to double digit seeds... PC in a virtual road game vs Dayton, and under seeded Gonzaga playing Seton Hall out West.