Bubble watch, part II: Big East

These are quickie profiles and writeups you can use in your evaluations.  Don’t expect eloquent thoughts, they’re just quick-hitters.

Lockbox:

Villanova (19-1) (7-1) RPI 2 SoS 15

Vital signs:  9-1 R/N, non-con SoS 29, 6-1 vs. Top 50, 12-1 vs. Top 100

Signature wins:  @Purdue, N-Notre Dame, @Creighton, Xavier

Bad losses:  none

Pretty standard resume for a 1 seed.  Only question is if anyone can catch them for #1 overall.  The ACC champ will likely absorb too many losses…Kansas maybe?

Butler (17-3) (6-2) RPI 4 SoS 8

Vital signs:  6-3 R/N, non-con SoS 16, 5-1 vs. Top 50, 13-1 vs. Top 100

Signature wins:  N-Arizona, Villanova, Xavier, Cincy

Bad losses:  @Indiana St, @St John’s

They’ve dropped a couple road bombs.  Do you say premium home wins make up for that?  Maybe.  They do have a road win at Utah to help the cause.  So they’re winning at less than an elite clip away from home, but not a bad one; while winning at an elite clip at home.

Creighton (17-2) (5-2) RPI 12 SoS 21

Vital signs:  8-0 R/N, non-con SoS 70, 6-1 vs. Top 50, 9-2 vs. Top 100

Signature wins:  N-Wisky, Butler, @Xavier

Bad losses:  home to Marquette

If there is a qualm, some of those 9 top 100 wins feel marginal (Akron and Ole Miss are top 50 wins right now, Nebraska and NC State are top 100 wins, etc.).  They’ll be fine, but pegging their seed range is difficult for now.

Xavier (14-5) (4-3) RPI 14 SoS 9

Vital signs:  4-4 R/N, non-con SoS 26, 2-4 vs. Top 50, 7-4 vs. Top 100

Signature wins:  N-Wake, N-Clemson, Provi and Utah?

Bad losses:  @Colorado is turning sour

The issue here is a lack of a high-end win.  They just struck out in 3 straight games against the top end of the Big East.  There’s also the issue of sorta kinda not owning a win against a solid tournament team.  This needs to be fixed by March, and there’s the chance there’s only 4 such games left on the schedule.

Bubble:

Seton Hall (13-6) (3-4) RPI 36 SoS 41

Vital signs:  5-6 R/N, non-con SoS 111, 2-3 vs. Top 50, 3-6 vs. Top 100

Signature wins:  N-Cal, N-South Carolina

Bad losses:  perhaps N-Stanford

The saving grace at the moment is no truly terrible losses to sink them.  Plenty of chances left on the board against the top of the conference; I would suggest getting at least 2 to have a reasonable argument in March.

Marquette (13-6) (4-3) RPI 53 SoS 51

Vital signs:  3-5 R/N, non-con SoS 223, 3-5 vs. Top 50, 6-6 vs. Top 100

Signature wins:  @Creighton, for sure, @Georgia?  Seton Hall?

Bad losses:  the worst might be N-Michigan

Non-con SoS is an issue, although a few decent teams wound up on it (lost to Michigan and Pitt and Wisky, beat Georgia and Vandy).  They’ll need to do some in-conference work, I’m not quite sure that SoS will be an albatross in this case.

Providence (13-8) (3-5) RPI 51 SoS 35

Vital signs:  2-7 R/N, non-con SoS 115, 2-5 vs. Top 50, 6-6 vs. Top 100

Signature wins:  URI, SHU, N-Memphis?

Bad losses:  @BC, @DePaul

Only a courtesy listing at this point.  Work to do, but the profile isn’t completely barren if they do work.

NIT Watch:

Georgetown (10-10) (1-6) RPI 94 SoS 23 – there’s an Oregon win here, and nothing else of note.