Your College Basketball Saturday Viewing Guide: February 16, 2019

First off, the very good news: There are 36 college basketball games on national television today! How great is that?!

The second best news: 12 of those 36, a full one-third of them, involve at least one ranked team. That’s pretty good. Three of those 12 involve two ranked teams colliding, which means that we have 15 of the Associated Press’ top 25 teams in action today. That seems like more than enough to keep us busy with Marquette taking the day off.

As Marquette is still ranked #10 in the country, it’s probably a good idea to continue to root against the other top 10 teams with the idea of keeping the Golden Eagles in the top 10. Here’s the cheering guide in that regard:

#24 Maryland at #6 Michigan
NC State at #2 Duke
San Diego vs #3 Gonzaga
Wyoming vs #7 Nevada

There is one other game with a top 10 team in it: #1 Tennessee at #5 Kentucky. As you can see, it has two top 10 teams involved, so we’re guaranteed to get a loss somehow there. Odds are it won’t impact either side’s top 10 status no matter who takes the L, although Tennessee’s hold on the top spot in the poll is at risk.

In terms of the Big East, there are only two games on the schedule. The DePaul/Butler game is the more important of the two. As the standing currently sit, those two are part of a three-way tie for fifth place in the league at 5-7. However, whichever team in third in the tiebreakers is technically in seventh place and thus holding onto one of the spots in the opening night of the Big East tournament. Dodging that opening night and thus a date the next day against either what will almost assuredly be Villanova or Marquette at this point would be most advisable if either squad has bigger postseason goals on its mind.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I just said “bigger postseason goals” in relation to DePaul and now I need to go lay down for a while.

Here’s the full national TV rundown for the day! Enjoy!