Your 2016 Big East Women’s Soccer Conference Tournament Scenarios

First things first: If you’re a fan of Xavier, Seton Hall, or Villanova, you have my condolences. Your women’s soccer teams are all 1-7-0 in league play this year, and with just three points each to their names, they can’t qualify for one of the six spots in the Big East tournament.

Moving on to everyone else, well, with just 11 points separating first place and seventh place, there’s the possibility for an awful lot of tumult on Friday when all 10 teams take to the field to wrap up the regular season. We’ll go team by team, in order of the current standings to explain what they can and can’t accomplish with a win, draw, or loss in their final match.

All five matches will be available to be streamed by the Big East Digital Network on Fox Sports Go. Here’s the schedule for Friday, with all times Central:

1:30pm: Seton Hall at Villanova
5:30pm: Butler at Xavier
6pm: Providence at St. John’s
7pm: #10 Georgetown at Creighton
7pm: DePaul at Marquette

Onwards, starting with the team in first place at the moment......

DePaul (7-1-0, 21 points)

The Blue Demons hold an advantage heading into the final match day. They don’t need to win to grab the outright regular season title or the #1 seed in the Big East tournament. A draw with Marquette will accomplish that as they’re already 4 points clear from third place Georgetown thanks to Sunday afternoon’s 4-1 shelling of the Hoyas.

That also means that DePaul is already guaranteed one of the byes to the semifinals. If they lose to the Golden Eagles in the regular season finale, the Blue Demons will be the #2 seed, but they’ll still be regular season co-champions at 21 points.

Marquette (6-2-0, 18 points)

A win over DePaul pulls the Golden Eagles into a tie for first place at 21 points, making the two teams share the regular season title. However, thanks to the head-to-head victory, MU would be the #1 seed in the tournament.

The worst case scenario for Marquette is finishing in fourth place. A draw with DePaul would open MU up to sliding past Georgetown if the Hoyas beat Creighton, but they’d stay in third in front of Providence even if the Friars beat St. John’s thanks to a head-to-head tiebreaker. They’d end up in fourth with a loss to DePaul and a Georgetown win or draw AND a Providence win. There’s not much difference between third and fourth as both spots host a quarterfinal match.

#10 Georgetown (5-1-2, 17 points)

It’s so weird that the only ranked team in the Big East has no chance of winning the regular season title. Anyway, the Hoyas are hoping for a Marquette loss or draw in order to snag that bye to the semifinals away from the Golden Eagles, but they still need to beat Creighton themselves to make sure they get there. Much like Marquette, they can’t do any worse than fourth place, because the next two teams below them in the standings are playing each other and they both can’t pass Georgetown either on points (Providence) or via tiebreaker (St. John’s).

Providence (5-2-1, 16 points)

Providence can host a quarterfinal match if they beat St. John’s. Simple, isn’t it?

If they catch a break and Creighton beats Georgetown, PC can jump up to third place with a win over the Red Storm. Things would get a little twitchy if Georgetown loses and PC draws with SJU because the Friars and Hoyas went to a scoreless draw in the regular season, but either way, it’s just settling who’s #3 and who’s #4.

A Providence loss would drop them to the five-hole, switching spots with the victorious Red Storm, but that’s it. Combine a PC loss with a Georgetown draw or victory and we’ll get a regular season finale rematch in the quarterfinals with St. John’s hosting yet again.

St. John’s (4-2-2, 14 points)

The Johnnies have already clinched a spot in the field, so that’s good. Also good: if they beat Providence, they’ll slide into the #4 spot and host a quarterfinal match which will almost assuredly be against Providence. There’s a chance they could slide up to #3 if Georgetown loses, but that involves deep tiebreakers due to the scoreless draw with the Hoyas in the league schedule opener for both squads.

Creighton (4-4-0, 12 points)

Here’s what we know for sure about the Bluejays: They have to beat Georgetown to guarantee a spot in the tournament. If they just pull off a draw, then they’re down to hoping that Butler loses or draws, and the same goes for a Creighton loss, too. Butler’s only two points back, so three more points for the Bulldogs would shove them past a losing CU team and a head-to-head tiebreaker gives BU the sixth spot in case of a draw.

If Creighton does lose to Georgetown (and let’s be slightly fair here: the #10 ranked Hoyas will be favored to win), then they’ll still get into the Big East tournament if Butler loses or draws with Xavier.

Butler (3-4-1, 10 points)

The Bulldogs have to beat Xavier on Friday if they want to get into the conference tournament. They only get in if they add three more points to their current total. They’re also going to need help. Butler catches a little bit of a break in the form of their 2-0 win over Creighton less than a week ago, because that means they can use either a Bluejays loss or tie against Georgetown in order to grab the #6 seed.