We are 1/3 of the way into the conference slate, more or less. Records and NET numbers are as of end of day 1/8.
1) UConn (15-2 overall, 4-2 Big East, 3 NET) - OOC went great, but there have been a few hiccups in the Big East. The team plays great defense (4 in KenPom) and the offensive is good, although not as impressive as it was in the non-conference. The fouling is a bit of a concern. I thought we had a friendly officiating crew on Saturday, and UConn still picked up 19 fouls in a game where Creighton was trying to shoot itself out of a deficit. A 1 seed may be out of reach, but I think a 2 is still possible with a 4 or possibly 5 loss season.
1) Xavier (13-3, 5-0, 18) – 3 close losses to 3 good opponents. 7 offense in KenPom, which is very good although their defense is just 79, which is not great for a P6 team. This team plays well as a unit and has 5-6 guys that can make their own shot when they get the ball in the right spot. I don't know how you stop this team from scoring.
Miller has washed most of the Travis Steele off this team, and I think he has the best starting 5 (Freemantle, Jones, Nunge, Boum, Kunkel) in the league, including UConn’s. Boum is amazing at point, and Freemantle may finally become the player that he looked like he would be after his freshman year, rather than the knucklehead he was at times early this season and most of last season (I am aware he had a foot injury last season too). The bench isn't great, but may be good enough to keep the starters fresh and queue Xavier up for a deep run in March. Teams that make deep runs in March are typically very good at something, and Xavier is very efficient offensively.
3) Marquette (13-4, 5-1, 21) – 6 KenPom Offense, 78 defense. I see the KenPom stats, but I don't love this offense. I think it is a little too freewheeling and leans too heavily on dribble penetration. I think Shaka is just letting his players play, and the offense is not chaos like say St. Johns, but Marquette has a few too many low percentage possessions a game. Getting some of those possessions back would have helped against Wisky, MSU or PC. On the other hand, the stats may not support this, but I love Marquette's defense. That saggy man-to-man plays the passing lanes so well, making them one of the best steal teams in the country. Marquette does have a big rebounding problem.
The close losses to Mississippi State and Wisconsin, and the win over Baylor, don't look quite as impressive as they looked a month ago. They have 9 guys that contribute meaningful minutes and most of them score. Jones, Prosper, Ighodaro and Kolek are all really good. Like Xavier, I like this team because it plays an unusual style, which makes it hard to prepare for, especially in March.
4) Providence (14-3, 6-0, 34) – There are times I wonder if Cooley could take 10 Boneyarders and make the team competitive in the Big East. Their O/D efficiency numbers (24/64) are OK, not great, given their soft schedule so far. Cooley hit the jackpot with Hopkins, who is better than I thought after watching him early in the season. Cooley grinds out wins, possession by possession, and has had to squeeze out wins against teams like Seton Hall and St. Johns. We will learn a lot more about PC when they go on the road to Creighton and Marquette and all those friendly calls start breaking the other way.
The TCU and Miami losses have aged well, but 7 of their wins are Quad 4 and aren't getting better. PC has two wins over teams that will play in the tournament, and both were at home. Providence is not getting killed like I thought they would, but it is a little early to pop the champaign for this squad. That said, they play smart and hard on both ends, and should be in good shape for a bid.
4) Creighton (9-7, 3-2, 24) – 30 offense and a surprising 25 defense with KenPom. Creighton is benefitting in the NET from teams like BYU, ASU and Nebraska having good season. Actually, even some of the guarantee opponents like UC Riverside and St Thomas have outperformed and are Top 200. I think Creighton gets a mulligan for the BYU and ASU losses since they were missing KalkBrenner. Creighton is a different team when he is healthy and out of foul trouble. I will give McDermott credit for turning the team around after a 5 game losing streak. That is a really hard task for a coach.
I can't believe McDermott has found another random low major in the transfer portal to be a major contributor. Scheierman is just a good player. I like Alexander, and Nembhard and Kaluma are not as good as they think they are, but they are still very good. The bench is pretty bad though, and will be a showstopper at some point this season. It killed Creighton against UConn when Kalk and Nembhard got in foul trouble. The outside shooting goes really cold at times too. I think Creighton will make the dance, but will not be around long.
6) Seton Hall (8-8, 2-4, 74) – Seton Hall is playing for an NIT bid. There is a good win at Rutgers, but the win over Memphis is fading and there is not much else to point to in terms of quality wins. They do have some quality losses, having played @ Xavier and PC close, and they didn't get killed @ Marquette. When matched up against the bottom half of the league, they won easily over St. Johns and Butler. They have already played 3 of their road games against the Top 5 in the league, so their remaining schedule is a little easier than some of the other second tier teams.
The offense is getting better slowly, and is up to 109 now, but the defense remains good at 27. As I said last month, this team just plays great defense. Defensively, it passes the eye test. They have great technique and never let up, even off the ball. Offensively, this team is a collection of role players outside of maybe Samuel that struggles to score.
I was tough on Holloway earlier, but I think he is making the best of a bad hand. There isn't a lot of talent on this team, but they are playing well. I do think they will pick someone off someone good this season with their defense.
6) Villanova (8-8, 2-3, 91) – There was a lot of recruiting junkies claiming that Villanova would turn things around once Whitmore got healthy. Well, he has played 9 games, Villanova is 6-3 in those games and the best win is a 4 point home win over Oklahoma. They aren't getting a mulligan for the losses when Whitmore was hurt because they aren't much better with him back. They are the 25 ranked offense in KenPom, but the defense is pretty bad for a P6 at 121, and some of the inside defensive rankings, like turnover % (243), eFG (218) and 3 point defense (228) are just bad.
The entire team is 1.3 DBPM or worse. By way of comparison, UConn has 1 player in the rotation, Alleyne (1.8) that is below 2.5 DBPM. Stylistically, it always looks like Villanova is fishing for fouls on offense, and they aren't good enough to get away with that. Villanova can still shoot and gets to the line a fair amount, but this is no where near as good as Wright's teams.
There is basically no path to an NCAA bid with this team, and the NIT is not a lock by any means with all of their non-conference losses.
8) St. Johns (11-6, 1-5, 102) – St. Johns has lost its last 5 Big East games, and most of those games were not close. The O/D (76/81) are about what you would expect from a team that is 1-5 in the Big East.
This team is playing an over the top aggressive 90's style offense and defense in an analytics world, and I don't think it is working. The starting 5 (Jones, Curbelo, Alexander, Soriano, Mathis) is OK, and the bench isn't terrible. I think they overdo it on penetration and make too many mistakes with their pressure. They have the shortest possession length (14.7, 1) in basketball, but they don't get better quality shots, they are just shooting faster. Sometimes an open jumper is a good shot, and they got to get defenses to leave the paint. They are a bad 3 point shooting team (31.6% 266), and I think a lot of that is because the shot attempts are crazy. All of their defensive stats (eFG 49.7% 165; 3-pt % 33.2% 172) are not nearly as good as you would expect from a Mike Anderson team. Anderson may have lost his fastball as a coach.
SJU has a reasonable shot at an NIT bid.
9) Butler (10-7, 2-4, 73) – Butler's NET is as good as it is because some of the non-conference games have aged very well (wins over BYU, Yale and Kansas State, losses to NC State, Penn State and Tennessee). I watched the game, and still don't get how Butler beat Kansas State. 115 offense, 58 defense, and the deeper stats aren't any better. I think the defensive stats will get worse as the season wears on because the team just isn't that good. After Bates, I don't think there is another player on this team that would even start for the Top 5 teams in the league. This roster needs an overhaul.
Butler has played 4 non-Depaul/Georgetown Big East opponents, and has lost each game by 20 points. Butler just doesn't have the talent to compete in the Big East yet.
10) Depaul (7-9, 1-4, 191) – O/D is 133/168. As I said before, this is a weak mid-major team in the Big East. Depaul is pretty much bad at everything they do. I won't predict them to lose the rest of their games, but they could lose the rest of their games. I want Stubblefield to succeed, but this is a rough Year 2 in Lincoln Park.
11) Georgetown (5-12, 0-6, 247) – Everything about this team is bad, so there is no point in diving into the deep stats. The only reason I don’t predict them to go winless is that Spears and Wahab are not bad, and the overall starting lineup is not terrible. Their is enough talent on this team to pull an upset of someone decent like a SJU or Nova, but the last 3 games have some warning signs of a team about to quit on their coach.
Projection of Big East records:
UConn 16-4
Xavier 16-4
Marquette 15-5
Providence 14-6
Creighton 14-6
Seton Hall 9-11
Villanova 9-11
St. Johns 7-13
Butler 6-14
Depaul 3-17
Georgetown 1-19
The Top 5 would go to the NCAA Tournament and St. Johns and Butler would go to the NIT.
There is a big underlying assumption in those projections that the dominance by home teams in Big East play will come to an end soon and revert to the mean. There also seems to be a big gap between #5 and #6 in the league. The Top 5 teams have not lost a game to one of the bottom 6 teams yet this season. I think there will be some upsets across that line the next two months, but not many.
Depaul and Georgetown are bad teams. I think we are lucky that they played as well in the non-conference as they did, because they could be Cal or Louisville bad this season and wrecking every team's NET rating.
