The path to sixth – Yahoo Sports

Quick, where does Xavier sit in the Big East table? You know they’ve won twice, hilariously going to Georgetown and winning and then knocking off Providence. You also probably know they’ve been battered by Creighton and UConn and lost a really dumb one to Marquette. Toss in a DePaul loss and you’ve got them at 2-4. Where does that put you in this year’s Big East? Eighth, ninth? Not last, because Ed Cooley, but surely down there somewhere.

How does sixth sound? Yes, the Musketeers are somehow bang in the middle of the conference. Five teams are ahead, five teams are behind. (It’s worth noting that mighty DePaul is also 2-4 and currently ahead on tiebreaker, but we’re going off KenPom and NET.) Ahead of Xavier sits Creighton at 4-2. Running them down might be difficult, but Xavier has a clear path to not finishing near the bottom.

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More importantly, Xavier needs to try to get to fifth. That will be seriously difficult given what they’ve done so far, but we all want X in the tournament and the only realistic way to do that now is winning the BET.

Handle business at home

Of the cloud of teams sitting with one or two wins, Xavier still has Butler, DePaul, Marquette, and Georgetown at home. Winning those four and just those four would lead to a somewhat uninspiring 6-14 record in the conference, but it would guarantee the Musketeers stay well away from the battle for the basement. Neither Bart Torvik nor KenPom think Xavier will even manage that, though. Butler on Wednesday is the one both numbers systems thinks trips X up. I think Butler is a paper tiger, but more on that tomorrow.

Last season you needed 11 wins in the conference to finish sixth. Winning four at home doesn’t get you there. 6-14 would have landed a team either eighth or ninth. So, things are down a bit. Even getting those 11 wins would leave Xavier on the wrong side of the bubble this season.

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Steal a game somewhere

Ok, so maybe just beating the other bad teams at home isn’t…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/path-sixth-171725362.html

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Publish date : 2026-01-13 17:17:00

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