If you needed a reminder that the Big East has the least amount of separation from top to bottom in the country, you got it on Wednesday night. Seton Hall may be on top, but they’re certainly not light years ahead of anyone, and even a team that lost one of the best players in the country pulled a game out.
We’ll start off early with DePaul visiting Seton Hall. The Blue Demons haven’t been the same since opening Big East play with a 74-66 loss at home to the Pirates, as they came in at 1-6 in Big East play with none of the first four losses being by more than eight points. This, too, was a very winnable game for the Blue Demons, who led the slugfest for a significant portion before the Pirates took over late in the game and sealed a 64-57 win.
During Seton Hall’s 10-game winning streak, six of the wins have been by single digits, including five of their Big East wins. By and large, this team has been pulling out close games, and while Myles Powell has played like a Player of the Year, he’s had plenty of good help. It’s been quite the team effort, and Kevin Willard would seem to be the frontrunner for Big East Coach of the Year if the award were given today. The Hall has also overcome much adversity to get to this point.
DePaul, meanwhile, may be in last place, but they had a fine non-conference run, which makes their 1-7 mark in the Big East puzzling. At the same time, it’s not as if they have been routinely outclassed, as they have been right there in most of the games, losing by double digits only twice. You wonder if the early losses hit them a little hard, making it tougher to pull out later games since they have been close so often.
Later on, Marquette visited a Xavier that could really use a win, as the Musketeers have struggled despite looking like a good team earlier in the year. And when Markus Howard went down with over 11 minutes to go, the Musketeers appeared to have a good shot to get a win and potentially the start of some momentum. Instead, Marquette rallied and put Xavier in the position of needing a late three-pointer to tie it, which they did, and the teams would need two overtimes before Marquette pulled off a big 84-82 win.
Naji Marshall hit a deep three-pointer in the final seconds of regulation that sent the game to overtime, and that’s when Koby McEwen continued to take over and Sacar Anim hit another big shot. McEwen would finish with 18 points, at one point scoring 17 straight Marquette points, while Anim had a game-high 28, going 5-9 from deep. Included in those three-pointers was one with 37 seconds left and the shot clock running down that broke a 76-76 tie and kept the Golden Eagles ahead for good.
Marquette now goes to 5-4 in the Big East, and to win on the road with Howard missing most of the second half and the extra sessions is big for them. The question has always been how good the support cast would be, and it was superb on Wednesday night. This can be a bigger lift for them than it looks, regardless of whether Xavier gets some late life like they did a year ago.
Indeed, the Musketeers need to get the kind of late life they had last year, when they got hot right as it looked like their long streak of consecutive seasons with at least a .500 conference record was in danger. It’s in danger again now, though they still have some margin, but more was expected of this team than to be a .500 conference team. Early in non-conference play, they looked like a team that should contend in the Big East, but that hasn’t materialized. Now, they go to Seton Hall on Saturday to begin a stretch with four of five on the road.
All the same, there’s so little separation between these teams that it wouldn’t be a big surprise if Xavier came alive and won, say, three of those five games. With the way the season has gone in the Big East and across the country, that is almost what we should expect.
Side Dishes
In a game that was otherwise overshadowed given that it was between two teams in the middle of the pack in the Atlantic 10, George Washington edged Davidson 107-104 in four overtimes in the nation’s capital. The big matchup in the conference on the night was also a close one, but Dayton held off Duquesne 73-69 to go to 8-0.
San Diego State is now 22-0 after blowing out New Mexico 85-57 in Albuquerque. This game might have been more interesting a month ago back when the Lobos had their whole team together, but now they are fading fast with four losses in their last five games.
On the other side of the ledger, Vanderbilt had a 40-30 lead early in the second half at Kentucky, but the Wildcats rallied to hand the Commodores an SEC record 25th straight loss by a score of 71-62. The record had stood for 70 years, held by Sewanee, who left the SEC after that. Vanderbilt surely won’t be leaving the SEC anytime soon, but in due time Jerry Stackhouse should be a good leader to get them to better times ahead.
Life in the Big 12 these days is basically Baylor and Kansas on top, then a jumbled mess behind them, and Wednesday night didn’t change any of that. Baylor remained undefeated in Big 12 play by taking care of Iowa State 67-53 in Ames, while Texas Tech beat West Virginia 89-81, which puts both teams at 4-3, while Texas edged TCU 62-61 in Fort Worth to go to 3-4 and drop the Horned Frogs to 4-3, and Kansas State beat Oklahoma 61-53 in Manhattan to go to 2-5 while dropping the Sooners to 3-4 in Big 12 play.
The Southern Conference race got a little more interesting on Wednesday, as Wofford blew out The Citadel 79-56, UNC Greensboro beat Western Carolina 72-58 and Mercer went on the road and picked up a surprisingly convincing 71-55 win at East Tennessee State. East Tennessee State still leads at 7-2, but they’re now just a game up on Wofford and UNC Greensboro
Other results of note: Michigan State blew out Northwestern 79-50; Penn State dumped Indiana 64-49; Houston took care of East Carolina 69-59 despite a monster game from Jayden Gardner (29 points, 19 rebounds) for East Carolina; LSU made a big first half stand up in their 90-76 win over Alabama in Baton Rouge; UConn beat Temple 78-63; Memphis got back in the win column by edging UCF 59-57 behind 18 points and 13 rebounds from Precious Achiuwa; Northern Iowa blew out Missouri State 95-66, while Loyola-Chicago entered the night tied with them but lost 68-63 at Southern Illinois, who is also now 6-3; Bradley beat Valparaiso 80-69 to keep pace with the leaders in the Missouri Valley, while Drake tried to join them at 6-3 but lost at the buzzer at Indiana State 58-56; Lafayette took down Patriot League leader Colgate on the road 80-78, getting a season sweep of the Raiders behind 13 points and 14 rebounds from Myles Cherry; Louisville took care of Boston College 86-69 in Chestnut Hill, getting 37 points and nine rebounds from Jordan Nwora; Colorado State edged Nevada 92-91; and C.J. Elleby hit a three-pointer in the final seconds to push Washington State past Arizona State 67-65, capping a 27-point, 12-rebound night.
Wisconsin got a double dose of bad news on Wednesday, though one is clearly bigger news than the other. The small item is that guard Brad Davison was suspended for a game by the Big Ten for appearing to purposely strike Iowa’s Connor McCaffery in the groin near the end of Monday night’s loss in Iowa. Davison received a flagrant 1 foul for the action as he tried to fight through a screen. It’s not his first incident, as he did something similar against Marquette last season. The bigger news is that Kobe King, their second-leading scorer, will transfer. King did not travel with the Badgers to Iowa for their loss on Monday night due to personal reasons, and head coach Greg Gard appeared to be a little surprised by the decision. King was leading the team in scoring in Big Ten play at 12.6 points per game and did not go into why he is leaving the program.
Tonight’s Menu
It’s another busy night of action, with a lot of mid-majors in action early on.
- The best of the four CAA games on the slate looks to be conference leader William & Mary hosting Northeastern (7 p.m.)
- In a busy night of action in the Atlantic Sun, two of the co-leaders battle as North Florida hosts Stetson (7 p.m.)
- In Big Ten action, Illinois tries to stay on a roll as they host Minnesota (7:30 p.m.), while Maryland hosts Iowa (8:30 p.m.)
- Winthrop takes their 8-0 Big South record into Charleston Southern (7:30 p.m.)
- Out west, the Pac-12 slate is highlighted by Cal hosting Oregon, Arizona visiting Washington and Utah visiting USC early on (9 p.m.), then UCLA hosts Colorado and Stanford hosts Oregon State later (11 p.m.)
- Highlighting the West Coast Conference slate is Gonzaga traveling to Santa Clara (10:30 p.m.)
