Xavier v. UConn: Big East Tournament preview

There are no secrets in a conference tournament, not one like the Big East Tournament. The perfect symmetry of the double round robin comes home to roost as the countdown to the selection show turns from days to hours. Not only has every team put 20 games of film into the historical record, but every team has seen every other team twice. Every action, every counter, every play call and wrinkle the bench goes to when they absolutely have to have a bucket or stop has been analyzed and pored over from every possible angle by the time single elimination begins.

And believe me when I say that this is single elimination play for Xavier. There are no seed lines, no resume talks, no idle afternoons of fraught bubble watching this year. The assignment is simple: win out. Xavier’s next loss – number 18 on this inarguably bad season – will put this iteration of the team to rest for good. The only tomorrow is the one they earn.

Advertisement

UConn could hardly be in a more diametrically opposed position. They will make the NCAA Tournament. They will be a protected seed. They went through the non-conference slate like a buzz saw, with their only loss being by four points to a powerhouse Arizona squad. They rolled the Big East, deprived of a share of the title – and sliding into this game against Xavier – only by dint of an inexplicable loss to the same Marquette squad that X just sent packing. They beat Xavier twice by an aggregate 55 points in two regular season meetings, with the most recent being the keg at Cintas in which the Muskies were never competitive.

Team Fingerprint

If you were to go down the list of things Xavier does poorly, it would also accurately describe things UConn does well. Xavier struggles to score inside the arc, UConn has the 9th best 2 point defense in the country. Xavier struggles to defend inside the arc, the Huskies shoot 57% from there. Xavier gets a lot of shots blocked, UConn blocks a lot of shots. Xavier is bad on the defensive glass, UConn is…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/xavier-v-uconn-big-east-191650630.html

Author :

Publish date : 2026-03-12 19:16:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.