Big East What To Watch: Week Three

This look at the week ahead in Big East basketball is being published bright and early on Monday morning because we’ve got basketball games on Monday. As such, if you’re reading this paragraph, the rankings you see below are from last week’s Associated Press top 25 polls. When the new polls come out and we have a free moment to update everything, this paragraph will mysteriously disappear! Isn’t the internet fun?

FEAST WEEK UPSIDE: There’s so many great games to watch!

FEAST WEEK DOWNSIDE: It’s hard to write the What To Watch because we don’t know most of the games due to tournament scheduling formats!

21 men’s basketball games this week, 24 women’s basketball games this week, man, that’s a lot of basketball. I will mail a crisp $1 bill to anyone who can prove that they watched at least five minutes of every single game on this schedule.

Let’s get to the highlights!

Monday, November 20: Seton Hall Pirates vs #8 USC Trojans (8pm Central, FloHoops) — The Pirates moved to 3-1 with a win over Rutgers back on Wednesday, and now they’re off to the Bahamas for two games in the Baha Mar Hoops Pink Flamingo Championship. Wow, that was a mouthful. Their only loss is on the road against a very good Columbia squad, and with this encounter against a great Trojans team, Micah Gray, Azana Baines, and Company get a chance to make a major statement about themselves and this season.

Monday, November 20: #4 Marquette Golden Eagles vs RV UCLA Bruins (10:30pm Central, ESPN2) — Other than playing a good UCLA team, this is a big spot for Marquette relative to their NCAA tournament projections in March. No, it is not too early to think about that for this reason: The winner of this game gets the winner of #1 Kansas vs Chaminade. All due respect to the Silver Swords, but 1) I don’t think they’re beating Kansas and 2) playing them will literally have no effect on MU’s potential seeding or even the NET, as they’re not a Division 1 opponent. Thus, beating UCLA probably means getting two more great games on the resume while losing to the Bruins probably means a Tuesday evening game against Chaminade and only one more high major contest on the docket.

Thursday, November 23: Butler Bulldogs vs #19 Florida Atlantic Owls (1:30pm Central, ESPN2) — Butler took their first loss of the season on Friday on the road against a Michigan State team that probably wasn’t too happy with their 1-2 start to the season. Beating FAU in the Disney World tournament, even an FAU team coming off an awful loss to Bryant over the weekend and thus no longer ranked #10 like they were last week, would probably go a long way towards wiping the sting of that loss away, and it would be a big deal for head coach Thad Matta in Year 2.

Thursday, November 23: Seton Hall Pirates vs #23 USC Trojans (4:30pm Central, FS1) — No, this is not a typo, both Tony Bozzella’s Pirates and Shaheen Holloway’s Pirates are playing a ranked Trojans team in a Feast Week event. This one is the Rady Children’s Invitational in San Diego, which does sound less fun than going to the Bahamas, but oh well. SHU is 4-0 on the year after beating Wagner on Saturday, and this would obviously be a big boost for them.

Friday, November 24: #6 Connecticut Huskies vs #2 UCLA Bruins (6:30pm Central, FloHoops) — If you can’t get excited about this game, please consult your local physician. Two top 10 teams! Paige Bueckers vs Charisma Osborne! Establishing shots of the Cayman Islands! C’mon!

Saturday, November 25: RV Marquette Golden Eagles vs Wisconsin Badgers or Arkansas Razorbacks — I’m putting this one in not because it’s a big highlight of the week — It’s Marquette vs a power conference team one way or another, just not a high profile one — but because it has a weird viewing situation. If Marquette beats Boston College on Friday, they will be in the championship of the Fort Myers Tip Off. That game will be at 4pm Central and streaming on Women’s Sports Network. EXPLAINER:

Celebrating its first anniversary this month, the Women’s Sports Network is a free, ad-supported streaming television network and is the first and only 24/7 platform dedicated exclusively to female athletes. Available in over 95 million homes with distribution on Amazon Freevee, Fubo, LG Channels on LG Smart TVs, Local Now, Plex, Tubi, VIZIO WatchFree+, Roku and XumoPlay, the Women’s Sports Network boasts partnerships with every major national women’s sports league in the United States, including the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA), U.S. Ski and Snowboard, World Surf League (WSL), WNBA, Athletes Unlimited and many more. Its partnership with the Elevance Health Women’s Fort Myers Tip-Off is the first such agreement between the network and any early season college basketball event.

If Marquette loses to Boston College, the game will be at 6:30pm and streamed on FSWBucs.com, just like Friday’s game will be.

Saturday, November 25: #6 Connecticut Huskies vs Kansas Jayhawks (6:30pm Central, FloHoops) — I’m using this UConn game against a top 40 opponent to ask a question: Why are so many women’s basketball multi-team events exactly that, just events? DePaul is in the Battle 4 Atlantis and Marquette is in the Fort Myers Tip Off, but every other women’s Feast Week event is “come on over here and play some games” instead of a winner’s bracket/consolation bracket tournament event. Let’s put something on the line instead of just scheduling some games!

Here’s the full men’s basketball schedule for the week, and we’ll update it as tournament games are finalized.

Here’s the full women’s basketball schedule for the week, and weirdly, there’s only one game that will require updating even though there’s a bunch of Feast Week events.