The latest week of Big East basketball action saw the two preseason favorites finally meet for the first time. Behind a phenomenal performance from Zuby Ejiofor (21 points, 10 rebounds, seven assists, three blocks, and two steals), St. John's pulled out the victory over UConn at Madison Square Garden. The Red Storm continued their win streak with the performance, and also set the stage for a potentially-pivotal rematch in Hartford on Feb. 23.
Elsewhere in the league, Butler and Providence followed their double-overtime thriller from December with again needing two extra periods to decide a victor. This time, it was the Friars coming out on top; Jaylin Sellers scored 36 in the win, and added 21 in a win over DePaul later in the week to earn Big East Player of the Week honors. The league also saw a pair of superb freshmen performances, with Villanova's Acaden Lewis scoring 26 at Georgetown and Marquete's Adrien Stevens splashing six of nine 3-pointers vs. Butler.
Enough introduction, though, and onto the rest of the Round-Up.
St. John’s dominates at the foul line in three-win week.
A rare three-game week since the last Big East Round-Up for St. John's, and it came out with its win streak still intact. The Red Storm first won on the road over DePaul, then returned home for victories over UConn and Xavier. As has been the case throughout the season, St. John's won thanks to its ability to control the glass and turnover battles en route to major shot opportunity margins.
The Huskies and Musketeers both posted higher effective field goal percentages than St. John's in their respective games, but neither could overcome massive free-throw attempt disparities. Add in the win over DePaul, and St. John's attempted 52 more free throws than its opponents over the three wins.
Taking into account the full season, St. John's is one of only nine teams in the country to rate in the 80th percentile or better in both field goal attempt differential (+55) and free throw attempt differential (+165).
SJU's victory over the Huskies is also a narrative-changer, as Rick Pitino's team now owns a truly top-end win to prove how much it has grown over the course of the winning streak. While the Red Storm faltered a bit in a letdown spot vs. Xavier a few days later, they still notched the victory in overtime. St. John's win streak is now up to 10 games, the fifth-longest in the country.
UConn suffers just its second loss of the season.
But while St. John’s won the pivotal battle atop the Big East standings on Friday night, UConn suffered just its second loss of the season. Losing on the road to a top-25 team did not drop the Huskies from the projected No. 1 seed line in bracketology, but it was a dump of cold water on what had been a hot run of form after dominant wins over Creighton and Xavier. The defeat also provided a second data point to assess where UConn has “struggled,” for lack of a better term.
UConn only secured a 20.7% offensive rebounding rate against St. John’s, its second-lowest rate of the season only to the loss to Arizona back in November. The lack of offensive boards against SJU is harder to grasp than against Arizona, though. The Wildcats rank 10th nationally in defensive rebounding rate, and UConn was without Tarris Reed for that game. Reed was available for this game, though, and St. John’s only ranks 241st in defensive rebounding rate.
Perhaps the larger concern remains on the defensive glass. UConn appeared to fix that concern over the prior two weeks, holding both Providence and Creighton below their season-long marks for offensive rebounding rate. During last week’s Round-Up, though, I mentioned that neither the Friars nor Bluejays ranked in the top 150 for OR%, leaving the “improvement” unproven.
UConn did hold St. John’s below its season-long offensive rebounding rate but didn’t defend the second-chance opportunities it allowed as well. The Red Storm scored 16 second-chance points off nine offensive rebounds (1.78 points per chance). UConn has wins over two top-10 opponents for both AdjEM and OR%, so it is not as though defensive rebounding is some glaring Achilles’ heel, but both of its losses have come against elite OR% teams.
Villanova’s Perkins is more than a glue guy.
The lack of resume-boosting opportunities in Big East play has caused Villanova’s projected bracketology seed to stagnate. Still, the Wildcats just keep winning. Teams like Butler and Seton Hall have shown that the Big East is full of teams who are plenty dangerous despite poor nonconference showings, which has been a killer to bubble resumes. Villanova has shown very few signs of wavering, though, leaping out to a 9-3 league record with two of the losses coming to the NCAA Tournament locks in UConn and St. John’s.
This past week, Villanova defended its home court against bubblicious Seton Hall, then went on the road to beat a surging Georgetown unit. While he wasn’t the team’s KenPom MVP in either game, Tyler Perkins continues to be Villanova’s unsung hero. The former Penn transfer has reached double-figures in seven straight games, and has scored at least eight points in 11 straight. The latter streak started in the second game of the Big East schedule, as he has been as steady as they come in league play.
In addition to the simple counting numbers, Villanova’s impact statistics show Perkins’ value. Since the start of his double-digit streak on Jan. 13, the Wildcats have been 27.5 adjusted points per 100 possessions better with Perkins on the floor compared to without:
Once already an impressive glue guy with tremendous rebounding ability from the guard spot (a la Josh Hart), Perkins is now one of the team’s most consistent scorers as well.
Seton Hall remains the best bet at a fourth bid.
On the flip side of Villanova’s win this past week, though, was another missed opportunity for Seton Hall. The Pirates worked their way back close to the cutline with their “avoid disaster” homestand of wins over Xavier and Marquette, but have fallen back to having a lot of work to do after dropping road games at Villanova and Creighton this past week. Seton Hall’s bubble is not yet popped, especially with opportunities against both UConn (away) and St. John’s (home) left, but the reassessment of their status after the back-to-back losses isn’t positive.
Seton Hall’s metrics have fallen to average in the mid-50s, which is not out of bubble range but is below the cutline. Holding just one Quadrant 1 win over NC State is also below most bubble teams, as is the fact that it is the Pirates’ only win over the projected field. They do not have a loss in either Q3 or Q4 yet, which buoys the resume, but they need more quality down the stretch. It is hard to envision a tournament berth without a win over UConn or St. John’s; Seton Hall must bounce back from its losses this past week and pile some wins before facing the two top dogs in two of its final three regular-season games.
Still, the fact remains that Seton Hall is the Big East’s best bet at a fourth at-large-caliber team. Butler has fallen completely off the bubble with four straight losses, while the rest of the league would have needed elite runs in conference play to counter poor nonconference resumes. With over half of the conference currently at least three games under-.500 in league play, no one has made such a run. If rooting for the Big East to land another team in the field, Seton Hall is still that team. If the Pirates continue to falter, then the Big East will need a bid-stealer to earn a fourth representative.
Who has bid-stealing potential?
But when analyzing any bid-stealing potential, the options appear limited due to the paths they will have to take. It is a near-inevitability that any bid-stealer would have to beat two of UConn, St. John’s, and Villanova to steal the league’s automatic bid at Madison Square Garden next month. To date, the other eight teams in the league have combined to beat those three teams…twice — and both of those losses were over a month ago. The league’s top three are a combined 19-0 against the bottom eight of the league since Jan. 8.
A counter could be that those teams are due for some losses. Each has had some close calls. Additionally, Georgetown’s bid steal in 2022 featured knocking off two eventual Sweet 16 teams, so it’s not unheard of.
As it stands, the top bid-steal threats appear to be Georgetown and Providence. The Hoyas are coming off losing at home to Villanova but had won four straight prior to that. They have been much improved since Vince Iwuchukwu returned, and just got Julius Halaifonua back after two missed contests. While they do not own any wins over the top three, they took UConn to the wire.
As for Providence, it is coming off back-to-back home wins, has already beaten St. John’s and took UConn to overtime, and features a blistering offense that can knock off anyone when clicking.
Games to watch this week:
- Feb. 14: St. John's at Providence (Thrill Score: 70.8)
- 1:00pm ET on TNT
- Feb. 14: Villanova at Creighton (Thrill Score: 68.7)
- 2:30pm ET on FOX
- Feb. 15: Seton Hall at Butler (Thrill Score: 63.7)
- 6:00pm ET on Fox Sports 1
- Feb. 11: Providence at Seton Hall (Thrill Score: 60.2)
- 7:30pm ET on Peacock
- Feb. 11: UConn at Butler (Thrill Score: 57.3)
- 7:30pm ET on TNT
