The weekday slate is a little slow, but things pick up in a hurry over the weekend.
I thought I wasn’t going to be in a hurry to post this week’s What To Watch because Finals Week across the Big East was going to slow down the schedule. As it turns out, there are still two Monday games on the women’s basketball calendar, so we’ll get this up on Sunday as a preview of what’s coming in the week ahead. If you’re reading this paragraph, then all the rankings below are from last week’s AP Poll. Once the new polls come out on Monday afternoon, we’ll update and POOF, this paragraph goes away! MAGIC.
It’s Finals Week for a lot of the schools in the Big East this week, and so we have just five men’s basketball games before Saturday and a somewhat surprising seven women’s basketball games before Friday. I’m stopping the count on WBB on Thursday night because let’s be honest about it: It’s not like there’s a lot of disruptive travel for Illinois Chicago to get to Wintrust Arena to play DePaul. The flipside of “well, not much midweek basketball” is “WELL, LOOK AT ALL THE WEEKEND BASKETBALL!” 10 women’s games on Saturday and Sunday, nine men’s games on Saturday alone.
I’m saying stock up on snacks now.
Let’s hit the highlights, which are a liiiiiiiiitle bit toned down because of the mid-week issue…….
Monday, December 9: Georgetown Hoyas vs George Mason Patriots (6pm Central, FloSports) — Uh. BartTorvik.com has George Mason favored in this game. At Georgetown. The Hoyas are on a win streak after losing three of their first five, and keeping that going against a top 50 Mason team would be pretty good news for their season.
Tuesday, December 10: Providence Friars at RV DePaul Blue Demons (7:30pm Central, FS1) — This goes on the highlight list because it is the first league game for the men’s basketball calendar of the year. It’s also on here because Kim English has managed to turn the first game of Big East play into a Must Win Game for Providence. After falling apart at Rhode Island on Saturday, PC has lost four of their last five….. and they have to visit Wintrust Arena to tangle with a DePaul team that’s probably mad about suffering their first loss of the season to Texas Tech. Have fun, Friars!
Wednesday, December 11: Providence Friars vs Penn State Nittany Lions (6pm Central, FloSports) — St. John’s went to Penn State and won. I’m not saying that Olivia Olsen and Company should have an easy time with Carolyn Kieger’s Nittany Lions….. but it might tell us a lot about Picked Third Providence’s season if they can’t at least be competitive with PSU at home.
Thursday, December 12: #2 Connecticut Huskies at #10 Notre Dame Fighting Irish (6pm Central, ESPN) — This one kind of explains itself. For you Marquette types out there, Liza Karlen has yet to debut for the Irish after a preseason injury.
Saturday, December 14: RV Xavier Musketeers at #14 Cincinnati Bearcats (1pm Central, ESPN+) — Zip ‘Em Up.
Saturday, December 14: Georgetown Hoyas at Syracuse Orange (1:30pm Central, ACC Network) — The Hoyas so far this season when they’ve even looked in the direction of a top 200 team have 1) gotten shelled by 21 at home against a Notre Dame team that promptly lost to Elon to start a five game losing streak and 2) gave up a 19-2 run across seven minutes to fall behind by 12 at West Virginia and lose by 13. Syracuse is not good and they’ve won two straight against Georgetown. Have fun, Ed Cooley!
Saturday, December 14: #5 Marquette Golden Eagles at RV Dayton Flyers (6pm Central, CBS Sports Network) — I begrudgingly admit that Dayton played North Carolina and Iowa State close in Maui, and then beat UConn to close out their run there. This will probably be a useful game for Marquette’s resume — Dayton will have to try to drop out of the top 75 of the NET and make this a Quadrant 2 game — and it’s probably a critical one for the Flyers.
Saturday, December 14: #25 Connecticut Huskies vs #7 Gonzaga Bulldogs (7pm Central, Fox) — Well, we’re going to figure out for sure if UConn has righted the ship after wins over Baylor and Texas, huh? This one’s at Madison Square Garden, aka “The Third Home Of The Huskies.”
Saturday, December 14: RV Creighton Bluejays at #10 Alabama Crimson Tide (7:30pm Central, SEC Network) — Creighton beat #1 Kansas last week, and then Pop Isaacs was ruled out for the rest of the season because he needs hip surgery. They handled UNLV at home fairly easily in the wake of that news, but this will be their first highlight game since Isaacs was ruled out. Bama will be coming off a stretch of nine days off since they went to North Carolina and shelled the Tar Heels by 15.
Here’s the full men’s basketball schedule for the week!
Here’s the full women’s basketball schedule for the week!