Big East Basketball What To Watch: Week Three

GOOD NEWS: It’s Feast Week, so there’s wall to wall great basketball to watch all week long, particularly during the daytime hours. It’s hard to beat #DaytimeBasketball.

BAD NEWS: We only have known opponents for 10 of the 22 games that will be played in the Big East this week. That’s the upside and downside of Feast Week tournaments. We’re pretty sure that there’s going to be some good games to watch, it’s just that we don’t know what the exact games are going to be as we look ahead at the week.

With that being the case, there’s not a lot of highlights to mention right here, as most of the true highlights of the week will be the games that are decided by wins and losses as the week goes on. We’ll try to keep this table updated as the week goes on, so bookmark this page and swing on back as needed.

Monday, November 19: Xavier Musketeers vs #8 Auburn Tigers (1:30pm Central, ESPN2) - This is the first match of the quarterfinal round of the Maui Invitational, so you really can’t go wrong with that as high quality television. You get XU taking on a top 10 team as well, which is pretty great, too. The Tigers are 2-0 against Division 1 foes this season, including a complete plastering of a very good Washington team, although that was in the comfy confines of Auburn Arena. Xavier isn’t favored here, but after losing at home to Wisconsin, the Musketeers could really use a big win, or at least a positive result from their trip to Hawaii. They will get either #1 Duke Blue or San Diego State in the next round.

Wednesday, November 21: Marquette Golden Eagles vs #2 Kansas Jayhawks (6pm Central, ESPN2) - This is the second half of the Preseason NIT Tip-Off event at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. After Marquette’s less than stellar performance at Assembly Hall and the arguably even worse outing against Presbyterian on Saturday, the Golden Eagles need to look like they belong in this game. I don’t know if they really have any kind of a shot of winning past “well, they’re in the game,” but while in August we may have considered 12+ point loss as just the cost of doing business, that’s not the case now. Louisville and #5 Tennessee are waiting for both of these teams on Friday night.

Thursday, November 22: Villanova Wildcats vs Canisius Golden Griffins (1:30pm Central, ESPN2) - So, uh. Y’know how a minute ago I was talking about how Marquette needs to have a respectable showing against Kansas? So, uh, Villanova lost consecutive home games this week: a 73-46 smashing by Michigan and a 76-68 overtime defeat at the hands of [checks notes] Furman. Again, both at home. You can spin over to VU Hoops, our sister site, for more on exactly what’s happening there, but at a distance, we can definitively say that they really need to win this game.

Saturday, November 24: Georgetown Hoyas vs Campbell Fighting Camels (11am Central, Fox Sports Regional coverage) - I don’t really care about Georgetown’s involvement in this game, if I’m being honest, and I didn’t care about their involvement before they lost to Loyola Marymount over the weekend. I care about this game because Campbell’s Chris Clemons is RIDICULOUS. He came into the season with 2,232 career points and he’s averaging 31 points through five games this season. In case you were wondering, yes, those are all against Division 1 foes. The crazy part about it? He’s not even as good as he was last year. Last year, Clemons had a shooting split of 45/37/86. Right now, he’s at 44/30/82. Georgetown will be his first Major Seven conference opponent of the season, so we’ll see what he can do.

Saturday, November 24: DePaul Blue Demons at Notre Dame Fighting Irish (11am Central, ACC Network Extra/WatchESPN) - This is the return bout from last year’s first ever game at Wintrust Arena. Notre Dame clobbered DePaul in that one, 72-58, but the Blue Demons.... might be a lot better? If nothing else, the Irish aren’t as good. DePaul beat Penn State last week after giving up a 10-0 run to end up having to go to overtime, so that was the most DePaul way to win ever, but Notre Dame lost a home game to Radford. It’s going to be a quietly very important game to the entire Big East’s NET rating if DePaul goes into South Bend and comes out with a win.

Saturday, November 24: Providence Friars vs Iona Gaels (3pm Central, Fox Sports Regional coverage) - This is a sneaky good non-con game for Providence. Iona has won at least 20 games for the eight years of Tim Cluess’ tenure as head coach, and they’ve been to three straight NCAA tournaments coming out of the MAAC at this point. They’re a high tempo team, never finishing below 60th in tempo under Cluess according to KenPom, and they’re absolutely capable of giving the Friars fits all afternoon long.

Here’s the schedule for the week! Enjoy.