This is part 22 of a 33-part series in this blog, designed to give you all the information you need to know about each conference's tournament, and the postseason prospects of every single team in the conference.
Final standings:
Villanova 16-2
Georgetown 12-6
Butler 12-6
Providence 11-7
St John's 10-8
Xavier 9-9
DePaul 6-12
Seton Hall 6-12
Marquette 4-14
Creighton 4-14
Conference tournament format: Wednesday March 11 to Saturday March 14, Madison Square Garden. We know the drill.
The matchups:
1) Villanova vs. 8/9) Seton Hall/Marquette
4) St John's vs. 5) Providence
2) Georgetown vs. 7/10) DePaul/Creighton
3) Butler vs. 6) Xavier
The stakes:
This might be the least exciting conference tournament to talk about. Villanova controls its own destiny for the 1 line. If they lose, Wisconsin is coming and coming hard, and maybe Arizona too. This would be a legitimate race to the end. Here's a team, though, that would be okay if they're #5 overall. They would get the 2 seed in the East regional next to the ACC champ (Duke/Virginia). If they're the #4 seed, they'd get the west, possibly with Arizona as the #2. Now, which scenario do you prefer? I'm not sure there's a right answer.
Georgetown/Butler/Providence/St John's might be a tourney within a tourney, as the 4 more or less are jockeying for position with each other. The loser of SJU/PU is probably #4 among the bunch, and GU/BU on the other half of the bracket could be for a 4 seed. However, all these guys are going to be between the 5-8 lines and it's tough to get real amped for that, y'know?
Xavier should be safe; they'll easily survive a loss to Butler.
Seton Hall is a NIT bubble team, and my hunch is they'll make it as long as they handle Marquette.
See? This conference is very drama-free this year, unless you're into S-Curves. Could be a lot of interior movement, especially if someone dings Nova.
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