Marquette Climbs to #5 in Latest AP Poll, Rest of Big East Sinks Further From Relevance.

Shaka Smart’s Golden Eagles look like a championship contender and the favorite for the Big East crown starting this season 8-0 start to the season. If they want to keep their seat at the top five table for another week, they will have to beat No. 6 Iowa State and No. 11 Wisconsin.

Insanity ensued during a wild Feast Week that saw many teams ranked ahead of Marquette lose.

No. 2 UConn got swept in three games at the Maui Invitational, No. 3 Gonzaga lost a close one to West Virginia in their opening game of the Battle 4 Atlantis, No. 5 Iowa State blew a massive halftime lead in Maui to then No. 4 Auburn, No. 6 Houston dropped their opening game and the third place game in the Players Era tournament against then No. 9 Alabama and San Diego State, and Alabama lost in a thriller to Oregon in the Players Era championship. 

While chaos ruled the world of college basketball, the Golden Eagles took advantage of the softest spot in their schedule in a stress free week blowing out Stonehill and Western Carolina who are 318 and 295 respectively on KenPom. 

Marquette has enjoyed a tremendous start to the season, but as the schedule turns to December the rest of the Big East does not share that same holiday spirit.

Selection Sunday last year provoked the ire in many Big East fan bases as only UConn, Marquette and Creighton earned bids while St. Johns, Seton Hall and Providence were widely viewed as snubs playing in a much tougher conference than the fringe Mountain West teams that got the invite instead.

The Big East has no right to complain about snubs in the tournament this year as the entire conference outside of Marquette and shockingly DePaul, who is the only other undefeated team in the conference thus far, has wildly underperformed. Here are the vibes surrounding the rest of the Big East.

Pretenders.

Starting with the Big East’s biggest disappointments, UConn and Creighton, two teams who have been mainstays with Marquette at the top of the standings in recent years, now let the conference down in a big way.

UConn is only ranked because they are the two-time defending champions. In no other scenario does it make sense for a team to lose three games in a week and maintain a number next to their name the next week. The incredible heights Dan Hurley reached the last two years apparently has swayed leeway from the voters. The Huskies should not be ranked, and UConn’s mythical quest to a three-peat looks like a pipe dream. UConn can no longer look down at the rest of the conference, they have to look up to Marquette as top dog in the Big East. 

Creighton dropped from No. 14 to No. 21 following a bad loss vs. in-state rival Nebraska who only let Ryan Kalkbrenner put up one shot the entire game. In need of a get-right performance, the Blue Jays turned in another stinker, getting blown out by San Diego State and dropping a close one to then No. 20 Texas A&M. Creighton appears to have no depth and puts too much responsibility on Kalkbrenner’s shoulders. Time to sound the alarms in Omaha, because the reality of the Blue Jays is that they are nowhere near their pre-season hype.

Glimmer of hope. 

While suffering some tough losses, St. John’s, Xavier, and Butler all still have paths open to them to have a good season, though they will need to capitalize on their remaining opportunities. 

St. John’s earned the right to be ranked at No. 22 earlier in November, but squandered their opportunity to climb the polls by losing both of their games in The Bahamas to the No. 13 Baylor and a Georgia team Marquette handled the night before. Rick Pitino needs St. John’s to win out their remaining non-conference games against Kansas State and Bryant. Non negotiable. Dropping either would critically damage the Johnnies’ chances at making the tournament, which would put more pressure on them to make a run in the Big East Tournament. 

After Xavier took St. John’s spot at No. 22, they lost by 25 to Mighigan in the championship of the Fort Myers Tip-Off losing their spot in the Top 25. More importantly, they fumbled their only Quad 1 game so far until they close out non-conference play against crosstown rival No. 14 Cincinnati. With all their wins coming in Quad 3 and Quad 4, Xavier’s to-do list is simple: win out non-conference. Just like St. John’s, Xavier needs to beat lesser opponents presented in front of them. They will have a great opportunity when they play Cincinnati to pad their resume prior to their opening Big East bout vs. UConn. 

In a tweet nobody in the Big East wanted to see, Jon Rothstein said, “Butler loses a buy game to Austin Peay. The epitome of brutality.” A Quad 4 loss to Austin Peay who sits at 229 on KenPom is the farthest thing from ideal, but as bad of a loss as that is, things are looking up for the Bulldogs. They are 3-0 in Quad 1 and Quad 2, beating No. 25 Mississippi State last week and handling business against SMU and Northwestern. Butler has a chance to solidify themselves toward the top of Big East contenders prior to Big East play with games against No. 17 Houston and No. 11 Wisconsin. Butler’s mission is to split against those ranked opponents and beat Eastern Illinois and North Dakota State. Do that, and Butler has set themselves up nicely to go to the tournament. If they can’t, brutality.

Pray.

The only chance these teams have to go dancing is running the table at Madison Square Garden in March.

Seton Hall may be the biggest disappointment so far. The Pirates have two Quad 4 losses to Fordham and Monmouth, a Quad 3 loss to Hofstra, and a Quad 2 loss to Vanderbilt. Their two best wins? A 3-point win against VCU on a neutral site, and a 2-point win on a neutral site against Florida Atlantic. Fans across the sport came to the defense of Shaheen Holloway’s team after getting snubbed last March. Seton Hall sought to prove the committee wrong by winning the NIT, but this year they haven’t shown that fire that they ended last year with and may have dug themselves a hole too big to get out of. Winning out non-conference and finding a way to beat Marquette at least once may be their only hope.

Providence, another team in the mix late last year, is in trouble. The Friars’ only wins have come against Quad 4 opponents. They lost to Indiana who is no longer ranked, Oklahoma, and Davidson at a neutral site in their only competitive scheduled matchups. With the rest of the Big East putting up bad losses as well, Providence needs to make a run at Madison Square Garden to have any hopes of making the tournament. 

While DePaul is still considered at the bottom of the Big East by most, they have actually done nothing but improve their vibes after being one of the worst programs in the sport a season ago. After going 3-29 overall, the Blue Demons new coach Chris Holtmann has started his tenure at 7-0. All seven wins are in Quad 4, but let’s not cheapen an undefeated November for a program that was handing out losses by the dozen a season ago. It’s clear a new culture is being set by Holtmann, doing his best to erase a pitiful tenure by Tony Stubblefield. Take the wins with a grain of salt, but this shift in vibes is a huge boost to DePaul and the Big East as the conference removes an embarrassing stain that needed to be cleaned up. What does DePaul need to do now to have a great season? Beat someone in the Big East. Anyone. Anyone at all. Throw a dart at the standings and wherever it lands, beat that team, because if DePaul can do that, they will improve on their historic 0-20 Big East record from last year. 

Dear Neptune, the Villanova Wildcats are bad. Since Jay Wright retired after building Villanova into a powerhouse in college basketball with two national championships, four Final Four appearances, eight Big East regular season championships, and five Big East Tournament championships, the Wildcats have been miles short of that golden standard with Kyle Neptune at the helm. In Wright’s last season, Villanova made the Final Four. Neptune’s first two seasons ended in the NIT. This season looks no different. Villanova has only won in Quad 4 games with a 4-0 record. The games Neptune lost include Quad 3 Virginia at a neutral site and Columbia at home, a Quad 2 loss at cross city rival and historic little brother to Villanova St. Joseph’s, and a Quad 1 loss to Maryland. Quite simply the only thing that can save Neptune’s job is winning the Big East Tournament and going on a run in the NCAA Tournament, but when that doesn’t happen Villanova fans can celebrate finding a new coach who can continue the rich history Wright helped create. 

Ed Cooley’s Georgetown program is still at the bottom of the Big East with the likes of DePaul. Don’t expect them to make the NCAA Tournament unless Cooley can tap into whatever Patrick Ewing captured to unexpectedly win the 2020-21 Big East Tournament, their only path to dancing that year. It’s only Cooley’s second year in a program that has been abysmal, not making the NCAA Tournament aside from Ewing’s outlier since 2015. 

There are games of incredible importance to the conference coming up. Hopefully the Big East can take notes on how Marquette has handled big boy teams in other conferences. If not, the Big East may have less than the three bids they secured last year.