We’re officially out of the Christmas break by the time this hits the internet airwaves on Sunday night. Big East women’s basketball had a four game slate on Sunday, three league games and Providence making
the trip down to South Carolina, so that made the end of break pretty official. There’s another two women’s games on Monday, and then two men’s games on Tuesday, and we’re off and running with the run to March. By the way, relative to this publishing on Sunday night, all the ranking information you’re seeing below is from the Associated Press poll that was accurate on Sunday. Once we get a new poll on Monday afternoon, we’ll change things up.
Both men’s and women’s basketball has a few conference games under their belts already, so storylines and storyarcs are starting to develop across both leagues. That’s good news, because we are super light on teams that are earning national headlines right now. That’s not ideal as far as attention for the Big East goes, but that doesn’t mean that individual games aren’t important to the teams involved and thus to you, the neutral viewer.
Let’s get into the highlights of what’s going on this week, shall we?
Monday, December 29: St. John’s Red Storm at Marquette Golden Eagles (6:30pm Central, ESPN+) — Joe Tartamella’s Red Storm are 11-3 on the season… but 1-2 in Big East action and coming off a nearly 40 point loss to Villanova back on the 22nd. Cara Consuegra’s Golden Eagles are 2-1 in the league with only a loss to UConn marring their record, and they’d love to remind everyone that they were picked to finish second this season by way of this home win.
Tuesday, December 30: RV Seton Hall Pirates at Marquette Golden Eagles (6pm Central, FS1) — The Pirates suffered their first true setback of the season on the 23rd, giving up a 16-0 run to Villanova early in the second half and trailing 64-46 with less than four minutes to play. This is their first game since then, so we’ll see how Shaheen Holloway gets his guys to respond against a Shaka Smart-led team that is (in theory?) desperate for anything good to happen.
Wednesday, December 31: Georgetown Hoyas at Seton Hall Pirates (12pm Central, ESPN+) — When the NET debuted in late November, Darnell Haney’s Hoyas were in the 30s. Now they’re coming off an overtime loss at Providence and in the mid-50s with an 0-2 record in the Big East. This is a bad time to be playing a Tony Bozzella-coached team in Walsh Gym, that’s all I’m saying.
Wednesday, December 31: RV St. John’s Red Storm at Georgetown Hoyas (7pm Central, FS1) — This is Georgetown’s first game with Ed Cooley on the sideline since the school suspended him for striking a mother and child behind the GU bench with a water bottle that he threw following the Hoyas’ 80-77 home loss to Xavier on the 20th. This is St. John’s first game against a high major team since losing by 12 to Kentucky in the CBS Sports Classic. What will happen? Who can say?
Sunday, January 4: Creighton Bluejays at RV Seton Hall Pirates (11am Central, Peacock) — Has Greg McDermott figured out his Bluejays team now? We’ll get an extra measure of that on Tuesday when they host Butler, but going to The Rock to see Seton Hall will perhaps give us a better measure…. particularly depending on how SHU’s trip to Milwaukee turns out.
Sunday, January 4: Marquette Golden Eagles at #4 Connecticut Huskies (1pm Central, NBC) — Passersby were amazed by the unusually large amounts of blood.
Sunday, January 4: Villanova Wildcats at Marquette Golden Eagles (3pm Central, Peacock) — Villanova’s travel schedule sucks. At DePaul on Monday night, home against Creighton on New Year’s Day afternoon, then back out to the Midwest for this one, all in seven days. Marquette has to bounce off to Xavier in the mid-week for a NYD afternoon game, so it’s not like they’ve got that much more rest, but on paper, Skylar Forbes & Co. have a the easier set of games this week. Jasmine Bascoe and the Wildcats are the last non-UConn undefeated team in the conference, so we’ll see if that fact survives a visit to the McGuire Center.
Here’s the full Big East men’s basketball schedule for the week! All times Central, of course.
Here’s the full Big East women’s basketball schedule for the week! All times Central, of course.
