Welcome to the final regular-season Big East Round-Up of the year! Albeit in a down year for the league, it has been to fun to not only follow the games but hit the keyboard every Monday night to discuss the latest happenings. I hope that you all have enjoyed following along, but there's also plenty more Big East hoops ahead.

When next week rolls around and the conference regular season has concluded, the Big East Round-Up will shift into preview mode for the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden. Before that, though, there was plenty of action across the league from the past week as well as looming seeding implications — both in-league and for the NCAA Tournament — to discuss.

UConn dominates St. John's in revenge game.

The most highly-anticipated Big East game of the past week was UConn's revenge chance at home against St. John's. However, it wasn't all that interesting for the most part — at least, for non-UConn fans. The Huskies jumped all over the Red Storm, using a 20-1 run to build a 21-point advantage by the 5:56 mark of the first half. Come the second half, and another 20-1 run increased the advantage to 33 with 5:53 left. By the time the final buzzer sounded, the scoreboard read a 72-40 advantage in favor of the hosting Huskies.

UConn only shot 47.5% from the field, including 7-for-25 (28.0%) from three, plus only attempted 11 free throws. Defensively, though, well...this happened:

Suffice it to say, UConn put forth a dominant defensive showing. The Red Storm were limited to just 19.6% shooting for the whole game. UConn blocked nine shots; it allowed 11 makes, only six of which were 2-pointers. Tarris Reed was flat-out superb for the Huskies, recording 20 points, 11 rebounds, six blocks, and two steals.

UConn followed it up with a home win over Seton Hall that was perhaps more stressful than hoped but nonetheless a victory. As such, the Huskies appear in strong position to land a No. 1 seed at the NCAA Tournament — most-likely in the South Region with the first two rounds to be played in Philadelphia, PA.

But St. John's responded emphatically.

Shortly after the 32-point defeat to UConn, St. John's returned home to host Villanova. Simply beating the Wildcats at home would have been enough to feel like the loss at UConn was a one-off against an elite team, but the Red Storm had other plans. They did not just beat Villanova, but did so by 32 points — the reverse of their margin from earlier in the week. They led by 28 at halftime thanks to two separate runs of 11-0 and 27-4.

“The response is a lot more important [than the loss],” Zuby Ejiofor said after the win, reported New York Post's Zach Braziller. “That’s what [Pitino] was saying and that’s what I was saying as well. That’s what I was telling the guys. A championship-level team responds in a positive way, and I think that’s exactly what we did tonight.”

Ejiofor did not just set the tone with his words but with his play. The star senior posted a triple-double of 16 points, 12 rebounds, and 10 assists – while also adding three blocks and a steal for good measure. St. John's forced the usually-careful Wildcats into a near-season-high turnover rate (22.1%) and also limited them to their lowest offensive rate of the season (13.5%).

The Red Storm attempted seven more field goals and eight more free throws than Villanova, plus shot more efficiently on both. With the way SJU controls possessions, it becomes very tough to beat when it also wins the efficiency battle.

Villanova loses Matt Hodge for the season

Villanova announced on Mar. 2 that forward Matt Hodge suffered a torn ACL in the team's loss at St. John's on Feb. 28, and will miss the rest of the season. The redshirt freshman had started all 29 games to begin the campaign, averaging 9.2 points and 3.6 rebounds per game. A floor-spacer who attempted more 3s than 2s for the season, Hodge had been shooting 36.8% from beyond the arc. From an on-off standpoint, Villanova played 8.5 adjusted points per 100 possessions better with Hodge on the floor versus without:

While Hodge is a significant loss for his individual quality, his injury also puts Villanova in uncharted territory. The Wildcats have used the same starting lineup in 27 of 29 games, only starting a different five in their season opener and when Duke Brennan missed one game against Old Dominion. They only rank 289th nationally for bench minutes percentage, with just seven players appearing in 20+ games and averaging over 15 minutes per game.

Looking ahead, Villanova will likely rely on Malachi Palmer in increased minutes. Over the last 10 contests, the 6-6 Palmer was on the floor for 98% of Villanova's Hodge-less possessions. To this point, Palmer has averaged 4.1 points in 17.1 minutes, shooting 23-for-62 (37.1%) from three. The lineup gets smaller with Palmer instead of Hodge, but Tyler Perkins' superb positional rebounding aids.

Villanova has two regular-season games left to prove its ability without Hodge. While Hodge might not be a star, the NCAA Tournament selection committee will judge the Wildcats on the team they have coming into the Big Dance. They should still dance easily, but could take a seeding hit if they struggle without Hodge.

Georgetown drops six straight, now loses KJ Lewis

After a four-game win streak as January turned to February, Georgetown has since lost six consecutive games to fall to 13-16 (5-13 BE) overall. The trending was not positive heading into the closing stretch and Big East Tournament regardless, but the latest injury news didn't help: the Hoyas announced on Feb. 26 that leading scorer KJ Lewis would miss the remainder of the season with a left ankle injury.

As the likely No. 10 or 11 seed for the Big East Tournament next week, Georgetown was already going to have a difficult time repeating 2021. Without Lewis, the journey gets much harder; the Hoyas have been 13.8 adjusted points per 100 possessions better with Lewis on the floor versus without this season:

The splits are even more pronounced since Vince Iwuchukwu returned on Jan. 6 (Georgetown has been 20.6 AdjP/100 better with Lewis on); the numbers of lineups with Iwuchuwku and Lewis playing together were excellent.

The biggest piece to watch moving forward is likely to be Kayvaun Mulready. For the season, Mulready's usage rate has been 4.2% higher in possessions without Lewis than when sharing the floor with him. He scored 19 points on 12 shots off the bench in Georgetown's first game without Lewis, a seven-point loss at Xavier.

The Big East only features three teams likely to reach the NCAA Tournament: UConn, St. John's, and Villanova. As such, the league is guaranteed to feature at least one bid-stealing candidate as far as the semifinals of the conference tournament. Having to overcome the likes of UConn and St. John's to earn said auto-bid as one of the bottom eight teams in the league feels like an extremely tall task, but not impossible or unheard of, either.

With that in mind, here is a quick little chart of the adjusted efficiencies for the league over the last two weeks, last month, and full conference season:

Not only is there still another week to build momentum for the bid-stealing hopefuls, but five of the eight are still fighting for a possible first-round bye: Seton Hall will more than likely earn one of those byes, but DePaul, Providence, Creighton, and (to a much smaller likelihood) Butler are still in the mix for a bye as well. The top five seeds all avoid playing on Wednesday.

Games to watch this week:

  • Mar. 6: St. John's at Seton Hall (Thrill Score: 73.0)
    • 9:00pm ET on Fox Sports 1
  • Mar. 7: Providence at Georgetown (Thrill Score: 63.0)
    • 8:00pm ET on truTV
  • Mar. 3: Seton Hall at Xavier (Thrill Score: 61.4)
    • 7:00pm ET on truTV
  • Mar. 4: Villanova at DePaul (Thrill Score: 61.4)
    • 8:00pm ET on Peacock
  • Mar. 4: Creighton at Butler (Thrill Score: 57.8)
    • 6:00pm ET on Fox Sports 1