By Michael Gross

🔐 UConn 

“Near Lock”

St. John’s 

“Good Shape”

Nova

“Bubble”

Creighton, Butler, Seton Hall, 

“Fringe Bubble”

Xavier

           St. John’s rallied from double digit seconds half deficits in their wins last week against Seton Hall and Xavier. that has brought their winning streak to 6 games. It also earned them a promotion to “Near Lock” status. Their profile is just good enough to be in this section. So it would behoove them to run their winning streak to 7 by beating Butler at home.

          Tough loss for Nova on the road at UConn. It looked like they might get a win that would have put them on the doorstep of sealing a bid. Instead UConn forced OT and pulled away in the end. Nova is still in fine shape with wins over Wisconsin, Butler and Seton Hall. However, if they were to lose this week at home to Providence it would cause a further evaluation of their overall profile.

          Butler certainly didn’t look pretty this past week in wins over Marquette and DePaul. However, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. They won games while others lost games. Sometimes that’s all that matter. The wins over Virginia and Seton Hall have them on track for a bid. If they can win at St. John’s and beat Georgetown at home this week; I think that would put them in terrific shape to make the NCAA Tournament. 

4 straight losses for Seton Hall has turned a team that seemed to be in “good shape” to make the field to a team that’s not in great shape to make it. The losses to UConn and St. John’s are nothing to be ashamed about. The loss at home to Butler wasn’t great, but somewhat acceptable. What they couldn’t afford was to lose to DePaul also. They really need to beat Xavier and Marquette at home this week to have a viable path towards a bid.

Creighton is just kind of “there” at the moment. They aren’t poor enough to drop to “Fringe Bubble”, but aren’t solid enough to be in the field. They must beat Marquette on the road and then see if they can beat UConn at home this weekend. A 2-0 week would drastically alter the course of their trajectory. If they only beat Marquette, they’ll stay exactly where they are. If they go 0-2, they definitely will drop to “Fringe Bubble”.

             Xavier took two really tough losses this past week against Creighton and St. John’s. Winning either would have at least given them a decent chance. Now they’ll have to beat both Seton Hall and DePaul this weekend in order to stay on the page in all likelihood.