Big East What To Watch: Week Seven

When the team at the top of the table is on a COVID pause, that automatically drags some of the excitement out of the week. No one is going to get to take a crack at handing Villanova their first Big East loss of the year this week. That’s kind of a bummer, but it is what it is this season. By the way, as I kind of indicated in the discussion of the postponement of Marquette’s scheduled Friday trip to Philly, we’re starting to veer towards games being canceled and not postponed. There’s only so much time left in the season, and there’s only so many spots on the calendar where they can shift games around. At some point, if teams are already past the 13 game minimum to be eligible for the NCAA tournament — and Marquette will play game #12 on Tuesday night — then there’s just no point in putting in the effort to shake up the whole schedule just to get a game in just because you’re “supposed to” play 20 conference games this year.

Anyway.

Highlights this week! Go!

Tuesday, January 5: RV Connecticut Huskies at Marquette Golden Eagles (8pm Central, FS1) — I’m not gonna lean into this too hard, but Marquette and Connecticut have had a pretty great rivalry through the first nine games. I’m not just saying that because MU holds a 6-3 advantage in the series, but I’m not not saying that, either. Anyway, they always seem to have great games, and this is the first meeting with the Huskies back in the Big East. Seems notable.

Wednesday, January 6: RV Seton Hall Pirates at #7 Creighton Bluejays (8pm Central, FS1) — We mentioned that the only undefeated team in league play is sitting out this week. This game features two of the three teams (Connecticut is the other at the moment) that have only one loss in Big East play so far. Someone’s coming away with a second loss while the other side stays within swinging distance of the Wildcats in the top spot. It’s also the only game of the week that has two teams in the Big East earning AP votes facing off against each other, so that’s pretty important.

Thursday, January 7: #3 Connecticut Huskies at #6 Baylor Bears (7:30pm Central, ESPN) — Easily the best game involving a Big East basketball team this week, and it’s not even close. Baylor has been clobbering the holy hell out of everyone ever since losing at #16 Arkansas back in early December for their only defeat of the year so far. Baylor’s smallest margin of victory in their last six games was exactly 20 points, and that was on the road against West Virginia six games ago. They’re not going to beat down Connecticut, that’s for sure, but this one is also going to be the biggest test of the year so far for the Huskies. Their last game was their next biggest test, and they beat #18 DePaul at home by 23.

Saturday, January 9: RV Seton Hall Pirates at DePaul Blue Demons (1pm Central, FS1) — DePaul is 1-2 on the year and 0-2 in Big East play. KenPom has them favored in just three games for the rest of the season. This isn’t one of them. I’m just pointing out what is rapidly turning into very terrible season for the Blue Demons that doesn’t even have all 20 Big East games scheduled right now.

Saturday, January 9: Georgetown Hoyas at Syracuse Orange (7pm Central, ESPN2) — A wild non-conference game appears! Are the Hoyas favored to win this game? Hell no. Is it worth following Casual Hoya on Twitter just to watch the traditional reading of Syracuse’s historical transgressions during this game? Hell yes!

Here’s the Big East men’s basketball schedule as we know it on Monday afternoon. If something changes, holler at us — @AnonymousEagle on Twitter or anon.eagle on the gmail — and we’ll update as soon as we can.