Big East What To Watch: Week Seven

It’s a short week of Big East basketball because of Christmas falling over the weekend. However, that doesn’t mean it’s not a big week of basketball, especially on the women’s side of the aisle with two teams facing a top five ranked team and two more squads taking on pretty notable non-conference foes.

Let’s get straight to the highlights of the week, shall we?

Tuesday, December 20: #24 Marquette Golden Eagles at Providence Friars (6pm Central, CBS Sports Network) — Two of the five 1-0 Big East teams square off and someone takes their first loss of league play. Also, Marquette and Providence tend to have Weird Things Happen at their games (court invasions, bats flying around, the refs decide to stop calling traveling because the court is slippery) so it’s a good “stare at something stupid happening” opportunity for any neutral fans wandering past.

Tuesday, December 20: #21 Creighton Bluejays at #2 Stanford Cardinal (9pm Central, Pac-12 Network) — Okay, so look. 99% of you reading this are not going to try and tune in for this game because you’re not Creighton fans or Stanford fans and it’s on P12Net. Sure, fine, whatever. But this is a massive opportunity for Emma Ronsiek and the Bluejays, particularly on the heels of losing to #21 Arkansas at home on Saturday.

Wednesday, December 21: Butler Bulldogs at #4 Indiana Hoosiers (Noon Central, B1G+) — Look, I just watched Marquette shred Butler on Sunday afternoon, I’m not holding out a lot of hope for the Bulldogs against a team as good as Indiana. But this is why they play the games, and it’s a big opportunity for Butler to do the Big East a huge favor.

Wednesday, December 21: RV Marquette Golden Eagles vs Colorado Buffaloes (Noon Central, FloSports) — This will be the non-conference wrap up for Jordan King and friends, and it’s quietly very important. Colorado is a top 40 NET team as of Monday morning, and it would do the Golden Eagles a world of good to back up their Texas and Gonzaga wins with a home court victory over a quality squad like the Buffs. As announced on Sunday afternoon at the McGuire Center, tickets are FREE for this game, so swing on by if you’re available.

Wednesday, December 21: St. John’s Red Storm at Villanova Wildcats (5:30pm Central, FS1) — St. John’s is 1-0 in the league... but the 1 was at home against DePaul and they won by 19, and that was two weeks ago. SJU’s only test of the year was at Iowa State, and they lost. Villanova is undefeated since star freshman Cam Whitmore got healthy and into the lineup, but their defense has been mediocre at best instead of abjectly terrible without him. They also haven’t started Big East play yet, and if they want to have any pretense of being an NCAA tournament team, the Wildcats can not lose home games to slightly questionable teams like the Johnnies.

Wednesday, December 21: DePaul Blue Demons vs RV Louisville Cardinals (7:30pm Central, FS1) — Aneesah Morrow and the Blue Demons had a rough start to the season, but they’ve won five in a row now. The Cards are clearly having some problems of their own after going into the Battle 4 Atlantis as the #6 team in the country. Both sides need a win here, and DePaul has the advantage of being the home team in the Big East’s final women’s basketball game until December 28th.

Thursday, December 22: Butler Bulldogs at Creighton Bluejays (7:00pm Central, FS1) — Wanna stare at a car crash? The Bluejays have lost six in a row while their offense has gone completely into the tank, and Butler’s been playing like a top 50 defense this season. They both lost their Big East openers, and no one wants to be 0-2.

Sunday, December 25: DePaul Blue Demons at Creighton Bluejays (3:30pm Central, Fox) — Fox wanted a game to go on after their lone NFL game of the day, because the NFL has scheduled just three games for Sunday and putting everyone else on Saturday. They went with the preseason top 10 Bluejays and DePaul, because they were the only two teams in the league to agree to it..... and now there’s a chance they’re getting a Creighton team on a seven game losing streak and a DePaul team that is literally broken because of injuries that have depleted their roster. Is this going to be good basketball that you should ruin your holiday with? Probably not, but I am FASCINATED to see what kind of ratings Fox will get for it against Bucks/Celtics on NBA Christmas Day and a very terrible Broncos/Rams matchup.

Here’s the full men’s basketball schedule for the week!

Here’s the full women’s basketball schedule for the week!