by Justin Perri
Live from Madison Square Garden, the arena I named my cat after (true story her name is Madison Square Garden Perri), is the Big East Tournament. Yearly, this is one of the best tournaments in all of D1. Let’s take a quick peak at what we can expect from the SQ standings for this conference.
UConn has been the front runner here for a while, so no matter what anyone tells you, they are not a sleeper in this tournament. They’re the odds-on favorite for a reason. I don’t actually have much of an opinion on this conference in regards to futures, so lets just get to the matchups.
8 St Johns vs 9 Butler
SQ Projects: SJU 78.1 to 72.9
Important to note that Butler just announced that Manny Bates and Eric Hunter would not be playing today and the line has moved from 5.5 to 6.5 in the last 30 minutes before publishing. Here’s that tweet.
Bates has the highest offensive rating on the team and Hunter has the most minutes… That is… not great!!!
So SQ has this one right around 5.2, but that’s without knowing about those players missing, so I would downgrade our projection by a point or two here which brings it right around 6.5, so no play on the spread for SQ.
This total, however, might now have some legs. You might think that missing players would lead to less points, but thats probably negligible. If anything the poor quality of Butler’s play without Bates and Hunter might lead to a bigger lead for SJU, faster pace for butler to try to catch up, and therefore, more shot attempts.
I’ll ride with SQ here and take the O142.5 since our projection is expecting over 150.
St. John’s has a pretty sizable offensive advantage here. They are the 69th best offense on SQ while Butler is 148th. I don’t want to chase that live steam on -6.5 but if you got the -5.5 after the news broke you probably feel pretty good. Butler ranks in the bottom 20% of D1 in shot selection and missing those major contributors isn’t going to help. Thad Motta takes a Butler team into this game that was already bad at getting to the line, and bad at securing offensive boards. I promise that Joel Soriano doesn’t make that any easier.
This should be an interesting one, probably feels safe to put SJU into a parlay now, but scary last words. You’re probably not getting the best price for them so I’d stay off the spread and root for some points. Both matchups this year got past 130 points and I think with the late game antics we’ve seen, Butler may be fouling with 2 min left to go. Let’s hope.
10 DePaul vs 7 Seton Hall
SQ Projects: HALL 70.9 to 66.2
The line currently sits at -5/-4.5 and a total of 137.5/138.5 depending where you look. SQ Is pretty much in agreement, 4.7 and 137.1 if you dislike math haha
I personally am going to go with Seton Hall -5 here, DePaul hasn’t won since two big wins in January at home vs Nova and Xavier, and those were both SQ losses. In fact, SQ says they have lost every game based on shots taken since Jan 4th.
Almost every top team in the Big East has handed this DePaul team a larger loss, except Seton. The thing is, Seton is within 10 spots of Providence, Nova and Xavier by SQ’s metrics. They are one of the better teams in this conference. I think they get their blow out win over this weaker DePaul team. Let’s go with Seton -4.5.
DePaul takes way too many midrange shots and Seton’s top 40 defense. They’re going to shut down isolation possessions at a high rate and limit points on 3’s. DePaul will find itself losing with very little way to make ground back. Their defense isn’t good enough to stop the Pirates from finishing at the rim.
Seton’s defense has out performed expectations this season and I imagine this is a spot it will continue to do so while cruising in to a first round win. Back the pirates, stay off the total but I lean under.
11 Georgetown vs 6 Villanova
SQ Projects: NOVA 79.8 – 69
It’s a rather foregone conclusion that Nova wins this game, but SQ seems to agree with the 11 point spread between these teams. It’s a large number on a Villanova squad that the market is very excited about due to the return of Justin Moore, and thats fine, he’s good, but it appears that the sharp side here is to take the points. Although, I am not going to. Just can’t do it. If you like that side take the +6.5 on GTown in the first half. They’re way too liable to fall of late in the game.
My play on this game is going to be the Over 141.5. I know we just lost a Total over in the Garden but I’m not expecting the last 2 minutes to have 2 points again. Georgetown is going to come out firing, they normally do, and that’s what teams who have nothing to lose need to do. Ewing needs this to be respectable, so they will continue to shoot regardless the score. SQ has noticed this, expecting the majority of their recent games to go way past this number.
Matchup wise, I think we favor the Over too. Few teams end up taking more mid range looks than Georgetown, and lucky for them few teams allow more points on midrange looks than Nova. You might not expect that, but based on how SQ has seen the shots get created, it’s true.
On the other side of the ball, expect Georgetown’s defense to struggle against the 3 and against transition. Nova will happily take open 3 point looks, especially on catch and shoot plays, where they rank 16th in national frequency behind the line.
I’m hoping this is a scoring-fest, it’s the last game of the night and I think the crowd will get going since more people might be there. I expect this to be a bit more of a show and agree with the SQ 150 point number. Let’s get an Over at MSG!
Enjoy the Big East Tournament!