The Battle for 3rd in Big East

[Goose85]

An interesting week starting what should be a wild finish in the battle for 3rd in Big East and a NCAA bid.

Current Standings (teams with a shot at 3rd)
Xavier (8-6)
MU (8-6)
Providence (8-7)
St. John’s (8-7)
Georgetown (7-8)

Games before the weekend
Xavier (8-6) @ St. John's (8-7) on Tuesday
GTown (7-8) @ MU (8-6) on Thursday.
Providence (8-7) @ Seton Hall (5-9) on Friday.

If St. John’s and MU win at home, and Providence gets a win over SH on road, heading into the weekend the battle for third looks like this;

MU (9-6)
ST. John’s (9-7)
Providence (9-7)
Xavier (8-7)
Georgetown (7-9)


Remaining games (games against Big East top 7)
None of the five battling for third play Butler and only St. John's plays DePaul

Xavier (8-6) – @ SJU / Creighton / @ Seton Hall / Villanova (3)
MU (8-6) – Gtown / @ Vill / @ Prov / SJU (4)
Providence (8-7) – @ Seton Hall / MU / @ Creighton (2)
St. John’s (8-7) – Xavier / DePaul / @MU (2)
GTown (7-8) - @ MU / Creighton / @ Vill (3)

With the round robin schedule, and a very good conference like the Big East, there is no easy finish to the season for any of the top seven teams.

[Nukem2]

PC will have a tough game at SHU.

[MUMac]

PC will have a tough game at SHU.

Not so tough, the game is at SHU. Now if they played it at PC, well then it would be a tough game!

[Nukem2]

Not so tough, the game is at SHU. Now if they played it at PC, well then it would be a tough game!
Yeah, there is that history this season for SHU. But, still think it will be a tough game for PC.

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

PC will have a tough game at SHU.

I'm not so sure about that. Seton Hall has actually been better on the road than at home, and both Willard and the team has talked about their home court disadvantage because attendance and fan support has been so poor. They are 2-5 in Big East play at home, but 3-3 on the road, and two of those three road losses were by a combined 2 points at Marquette and Creighton. Only one of their home losses was a single-possession game.

[Goose85]

Right now third place and sixth place in the league have the same number of wins, and seventh place is just one win less.
A lot of equally average / NCAA bubble level teams should make for some very interesting games almost nightly the rest of the way.

For as bad as MU has looked at times this season, a win on Thursday night at home could very well put us in 3rd place by ourselves. Does that move us into the next four out category going into the weekend?

[Phantom Warrior]

No. Not a single impressive non-conference win. Close don't count.

[WindyCityGoldenEagle]

just going off of the remaining schedules I'll say SJU runs the table and finishes 11-7 and in 3rd place.

[Goose85]

just going off of the remaining schedules I'll say SJU runs the table and finishes 11-7 and in 3rd place.

I too think SJU is likely to grab 3rd place. I think Georgetown could very easily go 0-3 and be in 7th place with a 7-11 record.

[kneelb4zerg]

No. Not a single impressive non-conference win. Close don't count.

GW was an 'impressive' NC win.

[NBBomber]

This could easily turn out to be a 4 way tie for 3rd between Providence, St. Johns, X, and Marquette. We need to hold serve at home and steal one at Providence.

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

GW was an 'impressive' NC win.

Only if you are actually paying attention this season. As most Marquette fans are down on this team, that win isn't impressive, no matter what the RPI and computer rankings say! George Schmwashington!

Beating Georgetown won't move us to last four in, but it will have us close. If we beat Georgetown and Villanova, we'll almost certainly be in the field, at least at that point in time.

[WindyCityGoldenEagle]

Curious- do most people think that the 3rd place BEAST team is a lock for the ncaa tourney?

I havent done the math, but would have to imagine we could win the rest and lose to Nova and be the #3 beast team - and imo this still wouldnt guarantee that we make the tourney.

I'm too lazy to look it up but I would think this type of a situation has happened before where a higher seed in the conference tourney has missed out on an NCAA tourney bid to a better overall resume despite a worse conference record. For example - if were the #3 seed and dont get in but Xavier is the #4 seed and gets in.

[MKE_GoldenEagleFan]

The committee has said multiple times that it doesn't look at conference standings when determining who is in or out, with that being said most times if you do well in conference you will make it... Marquette might be an exception this year depending on how things break

[Nukem2]

The committee has said multiple times that it doesn't look at conference standings when determining who is in or out, with that being said most times if you do well in conference you will make it... Marquette might be an exception this year depending on how things breakThey say they don't look; but, I suspect the committee members are well aware of the conference standings. Along with Pomeroy and Sagarin data, etc.

[BLT]

Plenty of games to play. MU plays two teams in contention for third, a team in first and one right behind us. All quality wins from here on out. Fate is in MU's own hands. Lose more than one and it is murky on the outside looking in.

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

Curious- do most people think that the 3rd place BEAST team is a lock for the ncaa tourney?

I havent done the math, but would have to imagine we could win the rest and lose to Nova and be the #3 beast team - and imo this still wouldnt guarantee that we make the tourney.

I'm too lazy to look it up but I would think this type of a situation has happened before where a higher seed in the conference tourney has missed out on an NCAA tourney bid to a better overall resume despite a worse conference record. For example - if were the #3 seed and dont get in but Xavier is the #4 seed and gets in.

Not necessarily. If we go 3-1, lose to 'Nova, and lose our first game at MSG, I will be very pessimistic going into the Selection Show. We'd have a RPI around 60, a SOS around 50, but our 19-13 record wouldn't exactly be the type that shouts "pick me, pick me" when you consider there'd be a chance we'd have only one top-50 win if the rest of the teams we would have wins over (Providence, Georgetown, St. John's, Xavier) didn't finish strong.

Now if we go 3-1 and Georgetown, Providence, and St. John's all go 2-1 to get into the top-50 RPI, we'd have 6 top-50 wins and might be able to afford losing that first game at MSG with an 11-7 league record, winning 7 of our last 10, and a handful of quality wins.

Without a doubt, we're in a tough spot. Win 4 more games regardless and I think we'll be looking pretty good. 5 more games and we're a lock. But if we only win 3, we'll need the other teams we play to do some things to shiny up our resume. That's dangerous territory.