Big East What To Watch: Week 11

There are six teams in the Big East currently projected to finish with eight, nine, or ten wins in conference play this season on KenPom.com. That’s more than half of the 11 teams in the league, all just nattering about bumping into one another. Is that good for the league? Is Villanova holding at least a two game lead in the loss column over everyone good for drama in the standings? No, it is not, but it’s the conference we have right now.

Let’s get into some highlights, shall we?

Wednesday, February 3: #3 Villanova Wildcats at St. John’s Red Storm (7pm Central, CBS Sports Network) — No, this one isn’t a big deal in terms of the standings. But the Johnnies have won five of their last six games, and four of the last five in Big East play. I’m not saying that they’re anywhere close to favored against still undefeated Villanova, but the Red Storm has to be riding high right now. Is that enough to guide them to the home upset over a Wildcats team that may be starting to gear up for a national championship run?

Friday, February 5: #3 Connecticut Huskies at Marquette Golden Eagles (6pm Central, SNY) — Yeah, this is a women’s game, and it’s way more important than any of the men’s games this week. The Huskies are 9-0 in Big East play and the only undefeated team while the Golden Eagles are the only team with just one loss. I’m not saying that the Big East regular season title is on the line here as both teams reach the midway point of the 20 game schedule...... but I am saying it’s going to be awfully hard for anyone to even tie with UConn if they manage to win at the McGuire Center here.

Sunday, February 7: #20 DePaul Blue Demons at Marquette Golden Eagles (11am Central, FS1) — Okay, so the relative importance of this women’s basketball game is entirely dependent on what Megan Duffy and her team do against the Huskies on Friday. If Marquette shocks the world and upsets UConn, then this game is between two loss DePaul trying to stay relevant in the Big East title chase and one loss but tied for first place Marquette. If Marquette takes the projected loss to UConn, then this game is, to a certain extent, going to decide who finishes second in the conference this season. If Marquette hands DePaul their third league loss here, then things are going to be pretty hard for anyone to end up surpassing the Golden Eagles for the non-Huskies top spot in the Big East.

Sunday, February 7: RV Xavier Musketeers at #3 Villanova Wildcats (1:30pm Central, Fox) — I’m not 100% sure this game will be played. Xavier announced a COVID pause on Monday, but the phrasing of it made it sound like the Tier 1 person who tested positive miiiiiight not have had all that much contact with the team recently. Xavier’s Wednesday game against DePaul was scrubbed as a result, but this one was not. It certainly sounds like the Musketeers think they might be able to play it, and if they can, that’s good news for the Big East as this is the only game between two teams earning AP top 25 votes on deck this week. With that said, Xavier has played just one game since January 10th, and that was this past Saturday against Butler. If they play on Sunday, they’ll have had more than a week off and they won’t have been practicing early in the week to be prepared for the Roving Destruction Sphere that is Villanova Basketball.

Here’s the full Big East men’s basketball schedule for the week. This is accurate as of Monday, but who knows what will or won’t be accurate by week’s end. Pipe up in the comments if you see a change that needs to be made!