With Marquette running up as the last team in the league to start conference play, let’s see what everyone else has been up to so far this season.
DID YOU KNOW?
Big East play starts for Marquette women’s basketball SUNDAY AFTERNOON. It’s true! They get things going with a road game against DePaul. We’ll get to a full game preview of that later on down the road, but with league play set to kick off for the Golden Eagles, it’s probably a good time to check in on the other 10 teams around the conference to see how everyone has been doing so far this year. However, instead of just doing a straight ahead “here are the teams in alphabetical order beep borp” rundown, I’m throwing a curveball into the mix!
I’ve gotten some nice reviews for the KenPom/Torvik change preview I’ve done for men’s basketball the past two years, so I wanted to adapt the idea for women’s basketball. However, I didn’t really have a good computer-based ranking system to pair with Her Hoop Stats, so I didn’t want to just run with one set of numbers. HOWEVER! BartTorvik.com debuted women’s basketball rankings for this season, and now we have a pair of rankings to use!
The 11 Big East teams have been ordered by “biggest change from the preseason.” I took the preseason Torvik rankings as noted on each team’s page as their ranking at the time their first game was played, and then compared everyone to where they were following the end of action on Tuesday, December 24th. It’s right in the middle of a stretch of five straight days without a Big East women’s basketball game of any kind, so why not? I also didn’t just use the current Torvik rankings, but instead I used the filter feature to remove any preseason projections or estimations and looked at the pure numbers of how everyone’s been playing up through Christmas Morning. If CBS Sports’ Gary Parrish can filter data, so can I. I also grabbed the Her Hoop Stats rankings debut numbers for every team, which started a week into the season, and then gathered up their rankings as of Christmas morning. No need to worry about preseason bias there, as HHS didn’t have numbers before games were played.
That gave me two change in ranking numbers for every one of the 11 teams in the league, and I just smooshed them together. This resulted in four teams that improved in both rankings, one team that’s neutral in one but positive in the other, two teams that are up in HHS but down in Torvik, two teams that are down in HHS but up in Torvik, and two teams that are down in both. That leaves us with six teams with a net positive change and five teams that have a net negative change. They’re all sorted below from biggest positive change to biggest negative change….. with one slight note.
I had to break a three-way tie for the biggest net negative change. Two of the teams were up in one ranking but down in the other, so those two are #9 and #10 with the team that’s down in both rankings sitting at the very bottom of the page at #11. The two with a split got ordered with the team with the smaller negative change (-30 in HHS) at #9 and the other one (-35 in Torvik) at #10.
There’s also a quick info dump for every team: Record, stats leaders, and best win/worst loss according to the NCAA’s NET numbers as of Christmas morning. That gives us an extra bonus level of statistical compilation and comparison here. FUN-ADJACENT FACT: Six Big East teams have a sub-100 NET loss right now!
Everything make sense there? Okay, let’s jump into it!
Xavier Musketeers: +95
Record: 5-7, 0-1 Big East
Scoring Leader: Meri Kanerva, 11.3 ppg
Rebounding Leader: Loren Christie, 5.8 rpg
Assists Leader: Meri Kanerva, 2.9 apg
Best NET Win: vs #155 Miami (OH), 71-66
Worst NET Loss: at #306 Eastern Michigan, 72-60
Xavier had the easy pathway to the top of the chart here because they were #311 in Her Hoop Stats and #294 in Torvik to start things off. That’s an awful lot of positive ground in front of them right out of the gate, and all credit to the Musketeers for grabbing up as much as they could. Are they having a great season? No, absolutely not, that Eastern Michigan loss kicked off a five game losing streak for them after starting off the year 4-2. But you know what? Billi Chambers got her second win of the season on November 15th this season…… and that was not a thing that Xavier did last year during her first season in charge. Do I mean “win a second game by 11/15?” No! I mean win a second game at all.
Next up for Xavier: Trying to avoid going winless against Big East teams for a third straight season. They are on a 45 game losing streak against league foes since beating Butler on February 20, 2022, and they’re already 0-1 this season.
Marquette Golden Eagles: +77
Record: 8-3
Scoring Leader: Skylar Forbes, 15.0 ppg
Rebounding Leader: Skylar Forbes, 6.8 rpg
Assists Leader: Olivia Porter, 3.4 apg
Best NET Win: at #145 Rutgers, 59-57
Worst NET Loss: at #157 UCF, 57-50
Most of Marquette’s boost in this category comes from Her Hoop Stats, as the Golden Eagles went from a sub-100 team at the start of the season to #56 in the country at the moment. I personally don’t think that MU’s anywhere near competing for an NCAA tournament bid like you would think a top 60 team at this point of the season could/should, but all credit to Cara Consuegra and her staff for getting MU to this point as we hit the start of league action.
This is a Marquette blog so you’ve read enough about this team already, so onwards we go…..
DePaul Blue Demons: +49
Record: 6-8, 1-0 Big East
Scoring Leader: Jorie Allen, 18.8 ppg
Rebounding Leader: Meg Newman, 7.7 rpg
Assists Leader: Jorie Allen, 40 apg
Best NET Win: vs #94 Butler, 66-43
Worst NET Loss: at #126 Northwestern, 64-56
DePaul’s not a good basketball team. There’s no way around that fact. The truth is, because they beat Butler at home, they don’t even have a win in the top three quadrants of the NET sorting system.
But I can’t tell if they’re sneaky good or sneaky bad. They’re 0-8 in games that are in the top three quadrants right now, so they’ve done nothing to this point of the season but take on losses against teams that they kiiiiiiinda had no business scheduling because they weren’t going to be good this season. This raises the question of whether or not DePaul’s computer numbers — and also their boost up in both computer numbers — are slightly inflated because the NCAA says they’ve played the 17th toughest schedule in the country. Congrats to them for trying, I guess, but between the roster turnover and head coach Doug Bruno being sidelined with a medical issue from back in the fall, they should not have scheduled like they were a Big East contender.
But that is what they did, and now they’re going to have to go 10-7 the rest of the way in the Big East in order to be over .500 going into the conference tournament. I guess the good news is that they only play UConn once?
Georgetown Hoyas: +35
Record: 6-5, 0-1 Big East
Scoring Leader: Kelsey Ransom, 19.8 ppg
Rebounding Leader: Ariel Jenkins, 9.9 rpg
Assists Leader: Kelsey Ransom, 4.1 apg
Best NET Win: at #36 Richmond, 55-53
Worst NET Loss: vs #108 Florida Gulf Coast in Canada, 66-57
The Hoyas are the team that stayed neutral in one ranking, as all 35 positive points are coming from Her Hoop Stats, going from #155 to #120. They are exactly the team that the Torvik computer thought that they were….. which means they’re a barely top 100 team in those rankings.
That’s probably a compliment, given that they had to barely squeak past a bad Boston University team on the road and do the same against a not-so-good Howard team in a cross-town rivalry game. That brings me to the point I made in GU’s Summer Check-In: What does Darnell Haney have for an encore after things went so well for the Hoyas during an emotional season in 2023-24? So far, it doesn’t seem like things are tracking towards great news for the Hoyas, but they also seem to have maybe played a slightly tougher non-conference schedule than a year ago and just came up empty a few times.
The flip side of “had to squeak through those near miss road games” is that those were the two games right before they played Richmond. Georgetown had to rally from down double digits in the third quarter, found themselves with a six point lead in the fourth, but still needed a three-pointer from Victoria Rivera right before the horn in order to knock off a Spiders team that flickered onto AP voters’ radars earlier this season. Is the sum total of Georgetown’s season to this point that they’re getting better? Maybe?
St. John’s Red Storm: +27
Record: 10-2, 0-1 Big East
Scoring Leader: Lashae Dwyer, 15.3 ppg
Rebounding Leader: Phoenix Gedeon, 5.2 rpg
Assists Leader: Lashae Dwyer, 3.3 apg
Best NET Win: at #68 Penn State, 72-67
Worst NET Loss: at #57 Villanova, 71-57
I was quite critical of head coach Joe Tartamella scheduling a Thanksgiving Day game against a quality opponent at the time. Then the Johnnies took a 54-52 loss to Harvard at home. It seemed like a silly misstep, especially when it was STJ’s first loss of the season, but it was far from a bad loss, just weirdly timed.
The Johnnies made up for it immediately, going to Penn State and winning in their very next game, then they tacked on a home win over Wake Forest, and wrapped up non-conference action with a win over a quality Fairfield squad.
And then they gave up an 11-0 run to Villanova in the first four minutes of a visit to the Finn and never had a chance in a 71-57 loss to open Big East play.
That’s not a season ending loss or anything like that, not before Christmas, not even close. It might be a definitive signal as to where the Red Storm’s ceiling is this season, but there’s worse places for a ceiling than “can’t beat top 40 teams, going to have problems against top 60 teams on the road.” That’s probably not a recipe for an NCAA tournament bid, but it does leave the door wide open to “the third best team in the Big East” since Creighton and UConn are taking the top two spots pretty easily.
Creighton Bluejays: +13
Record: 9-3, 1-0 Big East
Scoring Leader: Lauren Jensen, 17.8 ppg
Rebounding Leader: Molly Mogensen & Lauren Jensen, 4.3 rpg
Assists Leader: Lauren Jensen, 4.1 apg
Best NET Win: vs #35 Nebraska, 80-74
Worst NET Loss: at #44 South Dakota State, 76-71
Seems like Jim Flanery decided to go in the general direction of co-worker Kirsten Bernthal Booth’s non-conference scheduling choices this season. It has mostly worked out for the Bluejays, even though they’re 0-3 against Quadrant 1 opponents now and they only have games against UConn left on the slate in that department.
As you can tell, that means they’re 9-0 against the rest of the country, so even though they had to withstand a season opening loss at South Dakota State and a 18 point loss at Kansas State and a nearly 30 point loss in San Francisco to UCLA, Creighton is firmly slotted in as the second best team in the Big East and pointed towards the NCAA tournament.
I suspect that Creighton might catch an unexpected loss or two in Big East play, because their entire deal is dependent on hitting a metric ton of threes and not turning the ball over. That’s not a surprise for a Flanery team, of course, but so far it seems like Creighton’s defense isn’t quite on par with the teams that we’ve seen the last two seasons. If that’s the case, then if there’s a night where the ball’s a little slippery and the shots aren’t going in, you might be able to catch them.
Then again, you could do everything right, they hit 50% of their threes anyway, and you’re cooked.
Connecticut Huskies: -4
Record: 10-2, 1-0 Big East
Scoring Leader: Paige Bueckers, 20.8 ppg
Rebounding Leader: Sarah Strong, 8.7 rpg
Assists Leader: Kaitlyn Chen, 4.1 apg
Best NET Win: at-ish #19 North Carolina in Greensboro, 69-58
Worst NET Loss: vs #7 USC, 72-70
Yes, UConn’s on the negative side of the aisle. It’s because they went from #1 to #2 in Her Hoop Stats and #2 to #5 in Torvik. It’s fine. They had almost nowhere to go but down, kind of inverse Xavier. They’ve done this essentially without Azzi Fudd, by the way. She missed UConn’s first three games — including that road-ish win over UNC — played in the next five, missed three more with a knee sprain, and then played eight minutes in the loss to USC last time out. Turns out you can weather those problems if you have the #1 recruit in the country — Sarah Strong’s averaging 18/8/4, two steals, and a block — paying dividends right away and a former Ivy League Player of the Year to run the point for you.
Can I show you a chart real quick?
BartTorvik.com
My original takeaway from seeing the Big East efficiency map while working on this was that Creighton’s got defensive issues — and as I mentioned a minute ago, they do — but then I realized that the Jays have a +25 efficiency margin. They just look like they have problems because UConn’s playing like space aliens relative to the rest of the league and their efficiency margin of 47.7 is just throwing the measuring sticks of the chart waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off.
Villanova Wildcats: -18
Record: 7-6, 1-0 Big East
Scoring Leader: Jasmine Bascoe, 15.5 ppg
Rebounding Leader: Denae Carter, 6.4 rpg
Assists Leader: Jasmine Bascoe, 4.2 apg
Best NET Win: at #42 Saint Joseph’s, 81-65
Worst NET Loss: vs #96 Temple, 76-62
Much like the computers — up 11 in one, down 29 in the other — I have no idea what to make of Villanova right now.
They were a huge question mark team coming into the season after the transfer departures of Lucy Olsen and Christina Dalce, and you could almost argue that the Wildcats have weathered the roster shift just fine. Yes, they looked bad scoring 36 points against North Carolina, but that goes in the books as a 17 point loss…. which is also not great, but limiting the Tar Heels to 53 points is still something. The 14 point loss to Temple at home in a local rivalry game is a much bigger problem for Nova and trying to figure out where their season is going.
But you can throw that one out the door, to a certain extent, after they exploded past St. John’s in their Big East opener and never looked back. As I said in the section on the Red Storm, the job of “third best team in the league” is still a wide open battle at this point of the season. If Villanova can start regulating their performances instead of having wild quality swings, they can be that third best team. The Temple loss isn’t even bad enough to keep them out of the NCAA tournament right now, and hey: If VU keeps winning, that Temple loss will, by default, get a little less worse.
Butler Bulldogs: -28
Record: 10-4, 0-1 Big East
Scoring Leader: Caroline Strande, 14.3 ppg
Rebounding Leader: Kilyn McGuff, 7.5 rpg
Assists Leader: Karsyn Norman, 3.3 apg
Best NET Win: vs #40 Indiana, 56-46
Worst NET Loss: at #119 DePaul, 66-43
If I had written this post even just five days ago, or a week ago, I would have had a lot of very nice things to say about the Bulldogs. It would have been easier to say those nice things as well. Their Her Hoop Stats drop would have been less severe than it is now, and their Torvik bump up would be a little bit bigger, and they would have actually been on the plus side of the dial. Their only losses would have been a lopsided neutral site contest against a great Texas team, a lopsided road game against a maybe underrated Vanderbilt team, and a double overtime home defeat against a 10-2 Wisconsin team that holds wins over Georgetown and Providence. You could easily have put together a very glowing review of the first 13 games of Austin Parkinson’s third year in charge in Indianapolis, and they had that in-state rivalry win over a good Indiana team to hang their hat on for the rest of the year.
And then they got smashed out of the building by a DePaul team that is probably not very good even if their losses are all to quality opponents. The Bulldogs couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn from behind the three-point line, lost control of the game midway through the first quarter, and never got themselves back into it.
And now Butler is tied for the biggest downward combined movement in the league since the season started. Maybe it’s an aberration, as BartTorvik.com shows that DePaul game as Butler’s worst Game Score of the season. Maybe they’ll be fine the rest of the way, maybe they can harness what it took to beat Indiana and get that kind of performance through the next 17 games of Big East action.
Or maybe the DePaul game is a big sign of what’s about to happen to them over the next two months.
Providence Friars: -28
Record: 7-7, 0-1 Big East
Scoring Leader: Grace Efosa, 16.0 ppg
Rebounding Leader: Olivia Olsen, 8.1 rpg
Assists Leader: Orlagh Gormley, 2.3 apg
Best NET Win: vs #88 San Diego State in Cancun, 55-54
Worst NET Loss: at #227 Dayton, 65-61
Me, in July: “We do have to note that most of the returning players for 2024-25 are the same returning players from last year, too. Olsen, Efosa, Sheppard, Scott, Farrell, Archibald… they all made it onto the list of Notable Returning Players last summer, coming out of a coaching change following a 13 win season. Bringing back lots of players that contributed a bunch for you doesn’t automatically make you better the next season. Providence is kind of a perfect example of that point as returning players didn’t make them better in 2023-24.”
Big East coaches, in November: “That’s the third best team in the league.”
Providence, through 14 games: “Hey, what if we don’t play anyone in the top 55 of the NET, lose to two sub-110 NET teams, and score 40 points while losing our Big East opener?”
I am not going to take a full fledged victory lap here, as I hedged my July point about Providence by noting that they did seem to show a bit of an upturn during Big East play last season. But this team is not good and there is an argument to be made that they’re getting worse. At a glance, their entire deal is dependent on Grace Efosa getting to the rim, so if you can take that away, I don’t know what else Providence has to throw at you on offense because Marta Morales and her 40% three-point shooting come off the bench for less than 19 minutes a game.
Seton Hall Pirates: -28
Record: 9-3, 1-0 Big East
Scoring Leader: Faith Masonius, 18.0 ppg
Rebounding Leader: I’Yanna Lops, 5.3 rpg
Assists Leader: Amari Wright, 4.5 apg
Best NET Win: at #73 Cincinnati, 69-68
Worst NET Loss: vs #49 Princeton, 78-75
And now, the only true “worse than expected” team in the entire league. The Pirates join UConn as the only two teams in the Big East that are down in both computer rankings, and the Huskies’ drop is 1) barely noticeable and 2) not relevant to where their season is heading.
Here’s the wild part: Seton Hall’s not bad! If you can get to Christmas and the worst of your three losses on the season is at home to a top 50 opponent by one possession, things are going pretty good for you. SHU’s biggest problem is their major drop on Her Hoop Stats and most of that drop was all because USC crushed them by 33. It’s going to happen, and that’s literally half of their HHS drop. Now, they’ve been drifting downwards ever since, and that’s not great, but as far as wins and losses on the basketball court, the Pirates are just fine.
Do they have a case as an NCAA tournament team right now? No, absolutely not, they’re 1-3 in the top three quadrants and their own NET is at #85, maybe because they have five sub-200 wins. But as we’ve discussed previously, the door is open for someone to declare themselves to be the third best team in the league. That can be Seton Hall if they keep things trending towards the positive. That might be hard to do if Savannah Catalon is done for the year. I can’t find an update on her, but she left SHU’s game against Le Moyne after 25 minutes and hasn’t played since. It’s hard to say they’ve missed her since — squished by LSU, slogged through a W against Providence — but eventually, going without Catalon’s 13/3/2 and 2.5 steals per game is going to take a toll.