Big East Bubble Watch

With three weeks remaining, the Big East teams competing for bids has taken a little more shape.  Even with Villanova's loss to WVU on Friday, their impressive run over the past three weeks has made the Wildcats the 5th team to lock up a bid.  That leaves 4 teams left trying to secure a bid.  It's quite possible that all 4 of these teams can win enough games to get in.  The key thing these teams are competing for is to not finish 9th so that they don't have to play on day one of the Big East tourney and cause the committee to think twice about them.

Providence (8-5) - The Friars won two of their must wins this week to improve to an impressive 8-5.  With 5 games remaining, Providence will have to win at least two of them to be considered and then not lay a huge egg in the conference tournament.  However, that will not be easy since 3 of those game are against Big East locks. [@Louisville, Pitt, and @Villanova]  That leaves little room for error against Notre Dame and @Rutgers.  Providence has the lowest RPI of the teams left fighting for a spot so they will not win any tiebreakers.

Syracuse (7-6) - Syracuse had a huge win yesterday to avoid going under .500 and in the process all but eliminated Georgetown.  Syracuse could very possibly get in at 9-9 due to out of conference wins over Florida, Kansas and Memphis.   There is a strong possibility for that given their final 5 foes. [Villanova,  @St. Johns, Cincinnati, Rutgers, and @Marquette]

Cincinnati (7-6) - Cincinnati appears to be in a similar situation as Providence.  With a lower RPI, they need to get to 10 wins to be considered.  That makes their matchups w/ WVU and Syracuse very large.  Without winning one of those, the Bearcats have very little chance at getting to 10 wins.  [Louisville, WVU, @Syracuse, @S. Florida, Seton Hall]

WVU (6-6) - The 'Eers have finally hit the easier part of their schedule.  WVU should go 4-2 and have a chance at winning 5 of their final 6.  WVU will need to win 4 because going 3-3 against this part of the schedule may not convince the committee even with their impressive RPI.   Beating Cincinnati on the road will be key in order to finish ahead of them in case the committee decides to take only 8 teams.  Other games are Notre Dame, @Rutgers, @S. Florida, DePaul, and Louisville.  

There are three more teams that still think they have a chance, but most likely don't.  Notre Dame could get themselves back in the discussion if they win today vs. S. Florida and then beat WVU on the road this week.  But they would still have a very difficult time getting into the top 9 and I personally don't believe that the Big East is going to be given 10 teams.  They may not be given 9 teams, but 8 seems likely to me.  Georgetown and Seton Hall will both have to finish 5-1 to be considered and given their schedules, that just isn't going to happen.