The Big East/Big 12 Battle for men’s basketball takes up a lot of the oxygen this week.
We’ve got Monday basketball yet again this week in the Big East, so all the rankings items you see below are last week’s. Please take them with a bit of a grain of salt, especially where UConn men’s basketball is involved here…. or even the idea that Providence picked up one #23 vote last week. Once the new polls are out, we’ll update the schedules as needed.
Feast “Week” is over, but that just means Business Is About To Pick Up in college basketball. With college football’s regular season ending this past weekend, there’s suddenly a whole bunch of television time available, and programming partners are going to start filling that time with hoops! That means we get big time matches all across the week. In the case of Big East men’s basketball, that means the yearly inter-conference tilt with the Big 12, which will take place in bits and pieces all week long.
There’s lots of highlights, as you’d expect, so let’s get to it, shall we?
Tuesday, December 3: Providence Friars vs RV BYU Cougars (7:30pm Central, FS1) — I’m writing this on Sunday, so it’s likely that Providence has lost their one top 25 vote (they did) and BYU might have snuck into the rankings (they did not, but still). After the Friars went oh-fer in Battle 4 Atlantis, they need anything resembling a valuable win at this point, and the Big East/Big 12 Battle has handed them this valuable home game.
Wednesday, December 4: RV Creighton Bluejays at Xavier Musketeers (10am Central, FloSports) — Congrats to these two as this women’s basketball game is the first Big East league game for either side of the aisle this season! I presume that this is in the morning because Xavier is hosting a Cincinnati public schools day or whatever, but I can’t confirm that. I would personally not invite a bunch of 10 year old local kids to come watch the Bluejays beat you by somewhere between 31 and 42 points — those were the margins in this series last year — but I’m not in charge of things at Xavier.
Wednesday, December 4: #23 Connecticut Huskies vs #15 Baylor Bears (5:30pm Central, FS1) — UConn desperately needs a quality win after going hilariously oh-fer in the Maui Invitational. They catch a break with Norchad Omier and the Bears coming to Gampel Pavilion here, but it’s kiiiiiiiiind of a must win for them?
Wednesday, December 4: #5 Marquette Golden Eagles at #6 Iowa State Cyclones (7pm Central, ESPN+) — Game Of The Week in the league, obviously. Kind of a bummer it’s on ESPN+ and on at the same time as the UConn/Baylor and Creighton/Kansas games, but the Big 12’s contract controls the broadcast here.
Wednesday, December 4: RV Creighton Bluejays vs #1 Kansas Jayhawks (7:30pm Central, FS1) — Psssst. Hey. Ryan Kalkbrenner didn’t play in Saturday’s four point win over Notre Dame because of a lower body injury. I hear Kansas has a pretty talented big man named Hunter Dickinson. Curious about this one.
Wednesday, December 4: RV DePaul Blue Demons at RV Texas Tech Red Raiders (8pm Central, ESPNU) — DePaul is 7-0 with not a single opponent north of #230 in the KenPom.com rankings. DePaul stands next to Marquette as the last two undefeated teams in the Big East. Because of how time works, if Marquette loses in Hilton Coliseum, DePaul will be the last undefeated team in the league at least until this game ends. I know, you’re saying “yeah, so?” Totally fair….. but if you filter BartTorvik.com for results only and no preseason bias…. Chris Holtmann has the Blue Demons playing like a top 60 team, and third best in the league. Time to show us something, DePaul. Doesn’t even need to be a win here.
Saturday, December 7: #5 Marquette Golden Eagles vs #11 Wisconsin Badgers (12:30pm Central, Fox) — IT’S TIME FOR THE 2024 EDITION OF EGG BOWL BEDLAM!
Saturday, December 7: RV Creighton Bluejays at Northern Iowa Panthers (2pm Central, ESPN+) — Hey, Jim Flanery knows that he doesn’t have to schedule like an absolute madman, right? BartTorvik.com has the Panthers as a top 70 team right now and co-favorites in the Missouri Valley with Belmont. The Jays already lost at South Dakota State and Kansas State, I don’t think it’s a great idea of them to take another road loss here, but UNI’s going to try like hell to hand it to them.
Saturday, December 7: Butler Bulldogs at #17 Houston Cougars (4:30pm Central, ESPN2) — Butler has won five straight since losing at home to Austin Peay, including three KenPom.com top 70 victories. They beat then-#25 Mississippi State while the nation’s sports-watching eyes were distracted by the end of Georgia/Georgia Tech. I’m not saying they absolutely can beat Kelvin Sampson’s Cougars here, but I’m definitely interested in watching them try….. as long as they beat Eastern Illinois earlier in the week, and yep, we have to be concerned that they can actually do that because of the Austin Peay thing.
Sunday, December 8: Villanova Wildcats at Fairfield Stags (1pm Central, ESPN+) — FUN FACT: Fairfield’s favored to win here because Carly Thibault-DuDonis has the Stags at 4-2 with two top 45 losses per BartTorvik.com and they’re coming off a road win over a top 90 Wake Forest team.
Here’s the full men’s basketball schedule for the week!
Here’s the full women’s basketball schedule for the week!