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If Marquette’s quarterfinal exit from the NIT left you with an Andrew Rowsey-sized hole in your life, well, this coming weekend is aiming to fill it.
The redshirt senior is going to be a participant in the State Farm College 3-Point Championship down in San Antonio during Final Four weekend, and he will be one of the four gentlemen on the Big East team for the first ever 3X3U National Championship tournament, which will also take place in San Antonio.
The three-point contest gathers together eight of the best sharpshooting seniors in the country to compete for the crown. As of right now, it seems that they haven’t released the full roster, but I can confirm the following guys as competition for Rowsey: Creighton’s Marcus Foster, William & Mary’s Connor Burchfield, Notre Dame’s Matt Farrell, and Wichita State’s Conner Frankamp. Burchfield would have to be the favorite out of the assembled group of five, connecting on over 50% of his 161 attempts this season. That’s #4 in the country, when viewed through KenPom’s filter of 40% of his team’s minutes and at least two attempts per game. Burchfield is also the only one of the six to qualify for the top 100, while Rowsey comes in at #171 by connecting on 41.5% of his 301 treys this season.
The 3-Point Championship will be televised by ESPN on Thursday, March 29th between 8pm and 10pm Central time. That window also covers the women’s three-point contest and the men’s dunk contest, so we’ll have to wait and see exactly when Rowsey will be shooting.
The 3X3U tournament is going to be awfully interesting. Rowsey will be joined on the Big East squad by J.P. Macura and Trevon Bluiett from Xavier and Desi Rodriguez from Seton Hall. It’s a 3-on-3 tournament, with every conference in the country assembling a four man squad to compete. Pool play begins at 6pm Central on Friday, March 30th, and resumes again at 10am the following day. Since everyone participating is a senior with no more eligibility, there’s money on the line. Each pool play victory earns a team $1,000, as do wins in the quarterfinals and semifinals on Sunday. The team that wins the overall championship racks up $50,000 to split, which is not chump change.
With all four Big East participants shooting over 37% on threes this season and Bluiett and Rowsey clearing 41%, you’d think that the Big East squad would have a quality shot to win this event. It’s first to 21 or whoever’s winning at the end of 10 minutes, counting on ones and twos, so that should lead to a metric ton of shots behind the arc hoisted by the Big East guys.
The pool play rounds will be streamed live on Twitter on Friday and Saturday. The quarterfinals will be streamed on Twitter as well, with the semifinals, third place, and championship games being broadcast live on ESPN2.