DID YOU KNOW?
Marquette women’s basketball is already THREE games into Big East play?
It’s true! The Golden Eagles started off Big East action by shoving DePaul and Butler into a trash can back in early December, and then followed that up by getting shoved into a trash can by #1 UConn last week to end up at 2-1 already. We skipped doing one of these whip-around looks at the league back at the beginning of the month because MU was only seven games into the year, and some Big East squads weren’t even that far
along. Felt a little unfair to start making declarations about everyone.
But now? With a nice quiet time in the schedule thanks to Christmas and everyone up to at least 11 games played, it’s a good time to play catchup and see what’s been going on heading into Marquette’s game against St. John’s coming up on Monday, December 29th. We’ll get to an actual game preview for that one over the weekend, but for now, we’re going to do a little math magic to get a feel for how everyone’s season is going.
The 11 Big East teams have been ordered by “biggest change from the preseason” according to the rankings from both BartTorvik.com and Her Hoop Stats. I took the preseason Torvik rankings as noted on each team’s page as their ranking at the time their first game was played, and then compared everyone to where they were following the end of action on Monday, December 22nd. That was the last day of competition in the league until the 28th, so that’s just a good a time as any. I also didn’t just use the current Torvik rankings, but instead I used the filter feature to remove any preseason projections or estimations and looked at the pure numbers of how everyone’s been playing up through Tuesday morning. If CBS Sports’ Gary Parrish can filter data, so can I. I also grabbed the Her Hoop Stats rankings debut numbers for every team, which started populating on the second day of the season. I suspect there’s some preseason estimation/projection mixed in there, so take that into account.
That gave me two change in ranking numbers for every one of the 11 teams in the league, and I just smooshed them together. This resulted in two teams that improved in both rankings, one team that’s neutral in one but negative in the other, four teams that are down in HHS but up in Torvik, and four teams that are down in both. That leaves us with three teams with a net positive change, seven that have a net negative change, and one that’s nestled perfectly in a neutral zone. They’re all sorted below from biggest positive change to biggest negative change.
There’s also a quick info dump for every team: Record, stats leaders, and best win/worst loss according to the NCAA’s NET numbers as of Tuesday morning, too. That gives us an extra bonus level of statistical compilation and comparison here.
Everything make sense there? Okay, let’s jump into it!
Villanova Wildcats: +29
Record: 10-2, 3-0 Big East
Scoring Leader: Jasmine Bascoe, 18.4 ppg
Rebounding Leader: Brynn McCurry, 5.8 rpg
Assists Leader: Jasmine Bascoe, 4.4 apg
Best NET Win: at #19 West Virginia, 81-59
Worst NET Loss: vs #41 Fairfield, 75-63
It makes sense that we’re starting off with one of the two teams to make a positive move in both computer calculations. Nova’s ascent since the start of the season is mostly split pretty evenly between the two computers, and right now both of them — and the NET, too! — make it look like the Wildcats are on track for an NCAA tournament bid.
Denise Dillon’s team has won eight in a row in total heading into the Christmas break, and for right now, they’re only non-UConn team still undefeated in Big East play. Marquette is the only other team that can even lay a claim to “except UConn” undefeated to give you an idea of exactly where the Wildcats are right now. The best news for their season right now is that West Virginia has gone right on being awesome even after VU clobbered them in Morgantown. It’s an aberration on the Mountaineers’ season, but as long as that stays the case, Villanova’s going to keep looking better and better.
Keep an eye on Kylee Watson, by the way. The 6’4” forward grad transferred over from Notre Dame after missing all of last season with the Irish due to a knee injury. She played in Nova’s first four games — 6.8 points, 1.5 rebounds, 1.3 assists in 18 minutes — but she hasn’t played since the loss to Princeton. VU’s game notes from their last game say she’s out indefinitely, not for the season, but Nova’s gone on their winning streak without her. If she’s coming back, that’s an extra level of depth for this squad as the season goes along.
Providence Friars: +23
Record: 8-5, 1-2 Big East
Scoring Leader: Sabou Gueye, 13.9 ppg
Rebounding Leader: Teneisia Brown, 7.5 rpg
Assists Leader: Orlagh Gormley, 4.4 apg
Best NET Win: vs #56 Georgetown, 68-61 (OT)
Worst NET Loss: vs #205 Middle Tennessee on a neutral floor, 54-48
A 32 spot improvement in the Torvik computer is responsible for the Friars getting the #2 spot on our rundown here. Dipping nine spots on HHS isn’t really something to be terribly worried about, especially not with that very not good loss to MTSU gunking up the works. Thumbs up to Providence for ending up here.
The catch, of course, is that PC is at #149 when you slip the preseason projections out of the Torvik ranking, #143 when you leave it in, #159 on HHS, and #164 in the NET. Things are going better than expected for them, largely speaking, but that doesn’t mean that things are going well. You can’t lose to Xavier by 14 while only scoring 47 points and say things are going okay for you.
Providence might be a tough out, no matter what. Torvik has them at #23 in the country in effective field goal percentage defense, and top 40 in both two-point and three-point shooting defense. If they can keep that going, then getting through 40 minutes in Friartown won’t be fun for anyone. However, early Big East returns have them at just 50.5% on two-point defense while allowing under 40% on the season. No one’s confusing Xavier, St. John’s, and Georgetown with offensive powerhouses, so we’ll see what happens against teams like Villanova and Seton Hall.
Connecticut Huskies: +7
Record: 12-0, 3-0 Big East
Scoring Leader: Azzi Fudd, 18.5 ppg (#1 in the Big East)
Rebounding Leader: Sarah Strong, 8.4 rpg (#1 in the Big East)
Assists Leader: Sarah Strong & KK Arnold, 4.6 apg
Best NET Win: vs #6 Michigan at Mohegan Sun, 72-69
Sarah Strong is also leading the Big East in steals at 3.5 per game and in blocks at 1.9 per game. She’s two-tenths of a point behind Azzi Fudd for the team and thus league lead in points.
I’m just asking: What would it take for Sarah Strong to not be Big East Player of the Year in two months?
Also: Don’t read too much into the Huskies being only +7 here. They started at #6 in Her Hoop Stats and #3 for Torvik. They literally could not be doing better, as they’re now #1 in both, not to mention #1 in the NET, too.
Georgetown Hoyas: Even
Record: 7-4, 0-2 Big East
Scoring Leader: Khia Miller, 10.6 ppg
Rebounding Leader: Cristen Carter, 6.1 rpg
Assists Leader: Laila Jewett, 3.3 apg
Best NET Win: at #119 Wake Forest, 58-56
Worst NET Loss: at #164 Providence, 68-61 (OT)
Down 18 at Her Hoop Stats, up 18 at Torvik, ladies and gentlemen, your 2025-26 Georgetown Hoyas!
To be honest, Georgetown just barely missed out on being in the positives as they had moved into the mid-40s in Torvik right before they opened up Big East play with a seven point home loss to Villanova…… and followed that up by struggling through that Wake Forest win, which is the best win of their season so far, and then losing to Providence two games later, for what is their worst loss of the season, effectively negating anything positive from the Wake game.
It’s not what you want!
Losing a seesaw game to a not particularly great Providence team takes the bite out of trying to say something like “well, given how Georgetown takes it from you and how they get second chances, they can be in just about any game.” #38 in the country in defensive turnover rate, #39 in offensive rebounding rate. A whole bunch of stops without a shot and a whole bunch of second chances, especially when you’re top 80 in three-point shooting percentage, man, that feels like things should be generally speaking working out a little bit better for Georgetown.
Is your gut instinct “Georgetown can’t keep the same five on the floor” when you think they’re a little inconsistent? Yep. Just two women have started all 11 games, and to make matters worse, the two women who have started all nine of their appearances this season have missed two different games each for a total of four games with one or the other out. It’s not a coincidence that one of the four is the loss to Providence and and another is their overtime road loss against George Mason. Victoria Rivera is the Hoya who missed the PC game, so keep an eye on that.
Xavier Musketeers: -2
Record: 8-4, 1-2 Big East
Scoring Leader: Mariyah Noel, 15.7 ppg
Rebounding Leader: Savannah White, 7.2 rpg
Assists Leader: Meri Kanerva, 4.1 apg
Best NET Win: vs #115 Purdue Fort Wayne, 62-61
Worst NET Loss: vs #196 Dayton, 71-66
Xavier went into Christmas with more wins than they had all of last year and the same number of wins that they had in Billi Chambers’ first two seasons in Cincinnati combined. They already have one Big East win, toppling Butler, 64-58, on the road, which means that they have matched their league win total from Chambers’ first two seasons combined already.
Nicely done, Xavier. Sure, I have questions about why you’re down 60 in Her Hoop Stats and up 58 in Torvik for a net number of -2, but things were so much worse for y’all the last two years than they are right now. Steps in the right direction, and so on. [glances at the schedule] Okay, look, the PFW game — winning narrowly against a not good team — explains most of the drop in HHS, but the good news is that y’all have bounced nearly 40 points back from that since then. XU is better than they were last year and better than they were the year before that, or at the very least they’re going in the right direction on that issue. One more win guarantees them a win-loss improvement in the league from last year, and they get to play Butler at home and DePaul’s circling around twice. That’s their worst case scenario, and that’s fine for them.
Creighton Bluejays: -7
Record: 6-6, 2-1 Big East
Scoring Leader: Ava Zediker, 12.8 ppg
Rebounding Leader: Grace Boffeli, 8.2 rpg
Assists Leader: Ava Zediker, 3.6 apg
Best NET Win: at #109 St. John’s, 60-52
Worst NET Loss: vs #105 Northern Iowa, 51-50
All seven of Creighton’s downward notches are from the Her Hoop Stats ratings, as through 12 games, the Bluejays are playing exactly where the Torvik computers projected them to be. It’s not good news that “where they were projected” is #93 in the country, but “as expected” is still better than “oh, this is going so poorly!”
To a certain extent, this season is actually going much better than expected for Creighton, depending on the lens you want to use. Kiani Lockett suffered a non-contact injury back during the loss to Northern Iowa, their worst loss of the season, and she hasn’t played since. The fact that the Bluejays haven’t gone completely to hell with one of their two returning rotation players on the sideline is a credit to both head coach Jim Flanery as well as the three top 100 freshmen on the roster as well. Ava Zediker is one of the three, and you can see from the stat profile as to how she’s doing. Neleigh Gessert is #2 in scoring, just barely behind Zediker, even though she hasn’t started a game yet, and her twin sister Norah is chipping in 15 minutes a game off the bench.
Big credit to Grace Boffeli for what she’s doing in the lineup for the Bluejays as well. She’s coming off an ACL tear in November 2024, and she’s averaging 9.7 points and 8.7 rebounds against Big East opponents so far this year. If that means she’s getting healthier as the season goes along, then that’s good news for a Creighton team that would like to have a nicer conference season than non-conference season.
Seton Hall Pirates: -8
Record: 8-4, 2-1 Big East
Scoring Leader: Mariana Valenzuela & Savannah Catalon, 13.5 ppg
Rebounding Leader: Mariana Valenzuela, 7.5 rpg
Assists Leader: Jada Eads, 4.0 apg
Best NET Win: vs #64 Auburn, 69-63
Worst NET Loss: vs #70 Columbia, 54-53
Seton Hall is like Xavier where they’re up a bunch in one ranking system and down a bunch in the other. They’re down eight more points in Her Hoop Stats than they are up in Torvik, so here we are. Weirdly, their big drop is timed alongside their 14 point road win over San Francisco, a game where Torvik had them favored by five. Seems weird that they dropped hard after that, but HHS also has the Pirates down another 20 points since then, so it’s not all 100% computer weirdness….. although that was their second game of the season, so maybe it’s just more “getting good data in” than anything else.
IN ANY CASE, Because of their losses to NC State and Princeton, Seton Hall is not doing so hot in terms of putting together an NCAA tournament profile like perhaps they might have thought they could this season. The Columbia loss is a Quadrant 3 loss at the moment, and probably likely to stay there. They’re going to get chances to assemble something based on the stat profile of the rest of the league as the season goes along, but they’re already 0-1 against Villanova this season.
The good news here is that even though Savannah Catalon left their game against Villanova late with some kind of injury, she came back and had eight points, seven rebounds, and six assists in SHU’s 88-79 road win over Creighton earlier this week. Getting to rest until Sunday will help make sure the Pirates have her in the lineup the rest of the way, and in theory, returning to action against Xavier might give head coach Tony Bozzella a chance to manage Catalon’s minutes a little.
Marquette Golden Eagles: -26
Record: 8-4, 2-1 Big East
Scoring Leader: Skylar Forbes, 16.8 ppg
Rebounding Leader: Halle Vice, 8.2 rpg
Assists Leader: Jaidynn Mason, 3.9 apg
Best NET Win: vs #68 Wisconsin, 65-62 (OT)
Worst NET Loss: vs #75 Gonzaga on a neutral floor, 65-61
The Golden Eagles are down a teeny tiny bit in Torvik and down 20ish spots in Her Hoop Stats for the majority of their shift here. That seems bad, sure, especially since the Golden Eagles came into the year with an idea that their continuity could nudge them along towards an NCAA tournament berth this year. Here’s the good news: Since bottoming out at #84 at HHS in the wake of getting run over by Minnesota, Marquette is up 24 spots. They’ve cut their deficit more than in half since then, which is a good sign that Cara Consuegra is getting this team on an improvement track.
That’s particularly good news since Marquette has been Going Through It on the injury front pretty much from moment #1 of the season. Abbey Cracknell hasn’t played since twisting something in her foot/ankle area in her first minutes of action in the first game of the season. Kennedi Perkins missed two games after leaving the Wisconsin game on a stretcher and then suffered a foot/ankle injury right at the start of the Truman State game right before the Christmas break. That happened right at the start because she was in the starting lineup because Jaidynn Mason was out with illness, just days after Jordan Meulemans missed a game because of illness. That’s zero games played with a full roster, and since Cracknell’s injury, that’s just seven out of 11 games where Marquette was playing with everyone available.
2-1 in the league. Favored in 10 of the next 13. Let’s go.
Butler Bulldogs: -47
Record: 7-6, 1-2 Big East
Scoring Leader: Lily Zeinstra, 10.9 ppg
Rebounding Leader: Caroline Dotsey, 5.2 rpg
Assists Leader: Lily Zeinstra, 3.2 apg
Best NET Win: vs #194 Xavier, 64-58
Worst NET Loss: #87 Central Michigan, 68-59
Most of Butler’s downward turn in the computer rankings happened because of the loss to Central Michigan. Don’t lose at home to Central Michigan.
With that said, this could have been a lot worse, and thumping Indiana State by 46 points did BU’s Her Hoop Stats ranking a world of good, and using that game to kick off a three game winning streak including the home win over Xavier was also good news for them. Playing UConn on Sunday will not be good news for them, but that’s life in the Big East.
At the end of the day, this was a reset season for head coach Austin Parkinson as Lily Zeinstra was the only returning rotation player that he had. Zeinstra is obviously leading the team here, and it would be really nice if they had more than one double digit scorer. Still, at a glance, the Bulldogs are getting contributions from players who have eligibility remaining after this season, so if they can use this season as a building block to step forward next year, then maybe Parkinson’s tenure can get back on track to where it was before Caroline Strande suffered an ACL tear in 2024-25 and derailed where things were going.
St. John’s Red Storm: -78
Record: 11-3, 1-2 Big East
Scoring Leader: Brooke Moore, 14.9 ppg
Rebounding Leader: Brooke Moore, 5.9 rpg
Assists Leader: Shaulana Wagner, 5.4 apg (#1 in the Big East)
Best NET Win: vs #26 Oklahoma State, 74-67
Worst NET Loss: vs #103 Creighton, 60-52
The Red Storm are down by at least 30 spots in both categories, even though they’re 11-3 on the year. Even though they have a top 30 NET win. Even though they’re #11 in the country in two-point shooting percentage.
Why? Because they were up just 11 points on Le Moyne in their season opener with three minutes to play before winning by 15. That’s a Le Moyne team that Marquette beat by 47. Because after they stunned a ranked Oklahoma State team at Carnesecca Arena by a score of 74-67, they blew a 19 point lead against Hofstra and a 12 point fourth quarter lead all the way down to just one point with 5:11 to play. The Johnnies almost didn’t get the free throws they needed from Kylie Lavell and Brooke Moore as both went 1-for-2 at the stripe in the final 12 seconds, and that still gave Hofstra a chance to catch and shoot for the tie and overtime.
We have to note that last year, St. John’s started the year 10-1 and then started off Big East play 1-8. This year? 11-2…. but they’re already 1-2 in the league…. and two of their next three are at Marquette and at Connecticut… and there’s at Georgetown in the distance, and then a run of Marquette and Villanova at home followed by a visit to the Creighton team that already won in Queens. 4-9 to start Big East play would not be an unreasonable situation. Their New Year’s Day game at home against DePaul is going to tell us a lot about what happens here.
DePaul Blue Demons: -272
Record: 3-11, 0-2 Big East
Scoring Leader: Shakara McCline, 12.8 ppg
Rebounding Leader: Katie Novik, 6.8 rpg
Assists Leader: Katie Novik, 3.5 apg
Best NET Win: vs #324 UMass Lowell, 78-48
Worst NET Loss: vs #261 Loyola Chicago, 61-49
Let’s start with this key piece of information, especially since Marquette has already played DePaul once this season: Shakara McCline made her season debut — in that season best UMass Lowell win! — for the Blue Demons two games after the Golden Eagles visited Chicago. She’s still averaging 12.8 points per game, but it’s just been in the last four games. It’s also being propped up by a 25 point outing in a 10 point loss across town at Illinois-Chicago….. and that’s a game that Katie Novik, who was averaging 12.9 per game before McCline debuted, missed before returning against Creighton in their most recent game.
In DePaul’s defense, they have gotten nothing so far this season from Kate Clarke, who averaged 12/2/2 for them last year and shot 36% behind the arc, too. Clarke has a hand injury that the Blue Demons disclosed in late October, and Meg Newman, last year’s leading rebounder, was announced with a leg injury at the same time. Newman only missed the first four games of the season, and with her minutes down a bit from last year, she is putting up numbers about equal to what she was doing last year, at least in terms of per-40 minute contributions. Can’t fault head coach Jill Pizzotti for limiting Newman to help her keep getting better.
You also can’t really fault Pizzotti for keeping up DePaul’s tradition of going out and scheduling some tough games. I don’t think it was a great idea, with or without Clarke and Newman, to visit Princeton or host Michigan State, but DePaul did both of those things and lost badly. They weren’t that far off from an early season win over a pretty good UNLV team, and that was on the road, too. The intent is nice, but I don’t think anyone expected DePaul to be a contender this year, and maybe scheduling games that looked more like wins was a better idea.
Of course, DePaul has losses to three teams somewhere south of 200 in the NET right now, so “looked more like wins” is a very shaky definition for the Blue Demons, it seems. The Her Hoop Stats drop from the 50s looks bad, sure. But Torvik’s preseason numbers expected the Blue Demons to be bad — #127 — and somehow they’re so much worse, tumbling all the way down to #232 when you filter out the preseason data. No Clarke, sure…. but this is worse than just that.
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